The future of the Texas Hill Country’s most iconic bird, the Golden-cheeked Warbler, is currently being assessed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Before the holidays, SOS, Travis Audubon, Bexar Audubon, Lone Star Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and other Texas groups sent a letter urging Fish and Wildlife to resist a push by the Texas General Land Office and private anti-environment groups to remove the Warbler from the federal endangered species list.
 
Since the Warbler’s entire nesting range traces much of the Texas Hill Country and the Edwards Aquifer watershed, the best science and common sense tell us that the Warbler and the Hill Country as we know it are more endangered than ever.   Westward sprawl from the I-35 urban corridor and the resulting habitat loss and land fragmentation is expanding.  Increased pumping of surface and groundwater reduces spring and stream flows critical to birds, other wildlife, and people. A rapidly changing climate adds a major threat of increasing habitat loss from droughts and fire, both in the Hill Country and in the Warbler’s wintering grounds in southern Mexico and Central America. 
 
Yet the Texas GLO and its “develop everywhere” allies point to deeply flawed studies that overestimate the warbler’s population size. The science that Fish and Wildlife must consider, and that was set out in our joint letter, is clear that the Golden-cheeked Warbler should remain on the federal list of species at risk of near-term extinction.  SOS along with its partners at Earthjustice are working hard on multiple fronts to ensure that the Golden-cheeked Warbler stays protected. We are also working with a long list of Texas organizations pushing for more local and state funding for permanent land protection – funding that would match private land protection efforts and federal funds in support of the national and international 30 x 30 movement to protect 30 percent of the Earth’s lands by 2030. 
 
Stay tuned and thank you for your generous support for this work. 

 
​Please join us this Monday night at 6:00 p.m, January 23rd, at City Hall for the Austin Parks Board’s meeting, public hearing and possible initial action on the draft Zilker Park Vision Plan.  There is free parking under city hall, accessed on the southbound Guadalupe St. side of city hall.  (Get your parking pass stamped at the meeting.) If you’ve never attended a Parks Board (or other city) meeting, this is a great one to start with.  Sign up to speak when you arrive.  
 
This simple, side-by-side comparison of the neighborhood/environmental group supported Rewild Zilker plan versus the City consultant’s draft Zilker Commercial, Development, and Parking Plan supported by park concessioners and wanna-be concessioners lays out the key differences in these competing plans for the future of Zilker Park.  You can also read more, including the FAQs, on the RewildZilker.org website.
 
We will have a handout at the meeting as well.  If you cannot attend, you can email one or more of the Parks Board members at their official Board email addresses here.  You can also live stream the meeting on the City’s ATXN public meeting channel.
 
If you love Barton Springs and Zilker Park we need your participation in the process over the coming weeks and months, starting this coming Monday.