Electric Co-op Today

The breeding activity of the Houston toad is once again delaying a Texas electric cooperative and its members from removing wildfire debris and rebuilding flame-damage structures.

Jim Bell, a wildlife biologist under contract to FEMA, searching for Houston toads in an area of Bastrop County, Texas, damaged by wildfires. (Photo By: Sarah Beal/Bluebonnet EC)

Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative and Bastrop County crews must now get clearances from wildlife biologists before working in areas damaged by wildfires last Labor Day.

“This has slowed us down, but it has not stopped progress,” said Will Holford, manager of public affairs for Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative.

But some consumer-members of the Bastrop-based co-op who are anxious to rebuild, as well as some new service connections, are being delayed until wildlife biologists can check the sites for toads that might not even be there.

“I believe the Houston toad effectively ceased to exist as a purely wild species on Sept. 5, 2011,” Mike Forstner, a Texas State University biologist, said recently. Very few wild breeding age adults have been identified elsewhere, although thousands of zoo-raised specimens have been released.

Despite the heaviest rains in a decade plagued by drought, few calls from breeding age toads have been heard during nighttime audio surveys, Forstner said.

The endangered amphibians, small enough to fit in a child’s hand, have been on the endangered species list since 1970. About 3,000 of the animals were believed to exist in the wild in Bastrop County last spring.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered the pre-work site examinations for all areas of Bastrop County damaged by the fires. The new order comes less than a month after a one-week stand down so public that co-op officials could work out an agreement with FEMA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We are working very closely with FEMA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife to balance the need to preserve the Houston toad and the need to serve our members,” said Mark Rose, Bluebonnet’s general manager.

New restrictions on debris removal and heavy equipment operations without biologist clearance are expected to remain in place through late June, traditionally the end of the toad’s chorusing season.

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Tags: Environmental Stewardship, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service