What Blue Crabs and Brown Pelicans have to do with a Historic Coastal Artillery Battery is anyone's guess. But here you are looking at this information. Luckily there is a bench here for you to sit on while you ponder this enigma.
While you are waiting for an epiphany, here is what you are currently seeing around you:
- beyond this sign is an open field with the remains of the foundations of several buildings.
- behind you is the gulf.
- to your left (a distance away) is Battery Kimble - built in 1925, it is the largest of the four coastal defense gun batteries at Fort Travis.
- to your right is the remains of forts perimeter wall and beyond that is modern houses.
From the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form - Fort Travis Historic District
Port Bolivar, Galveston County, Texas
Fort Travis (Fort Travis Seashore Park) is the most complete concentration of coastal artillery batteries on the Texas Gulf Coast. Constructed between 1898 and 1943, the fort is on the southern tip of the Bolivar Peninsula and contains four principal batteries, one concrete observation post, an anti-aircraft gun emplacement, and the remains of seven concrete foundations, two concrete water tanks, one storage shed, a mobile home (used as an office), and a caretaker's house. Fort Travis originally featured enlisted men's barracks, officer quarters, and other ancillary structures. Although the historical properties at Fort Travis are at different levels of deterioration, they still retain their overall architectural and historical integrity. Batteries Davis, Ernst, Kimble and No. 236 represent three distinctive historical periods in the military history of coastal defense fortifications, and the construction and placement of the batteries exemplify military strategies and technologies typical of the period when they were constructed.
What Blue Crabs and Brown Pelicans have to do with a Historic Coastal Artillery Battery,
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Fort Travis Interpretive Trail
Sponsors:
Galveston County Parks Department
Texas Coastal Management Program
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Galveston Bay Estuary Program (TCEQ)
Blue Crab
Blue crab is a popular seafood species found along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. More blue crabs are commercially harvested in Galveston Bay than in any other Texas estuary. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has calculated that 33% of the Texas commercial crab harvest came from Galveston Bay during the years 1994 to 1998. More than 2.6 million pounds in blue crab for commercially harvested in Galveston Bay in 1998 with an excessive value of more than 1.6 million dollars.
Since 1972, the amount of blue crab harvested in Galveston Bay has exhibited a slightly increasing trend with a robust increasing for the period of 1992 to 1998. While the amount of blue crab harvested has increased over the past three decades, blue crab populations exhibit a declining trend over the same period.
Return of the Brown Pelican
One of the most dramatic recent developments for wildlife conservation in Galveston Bay is the return of the brown pelican. This large water bird is an odd mixture of majesty and comedy. Watching a formation of pelicans slowly beating up when along the shore can be a majestic sight, and observing A flock hurting mullet around an inlet as they feed on them can be comedic. The species is symbolic of s green dependent birds, but it is listed as endangered in Texas.
According to Phi Glass of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in 1918 and estimated 5,000 Brown pelicans nested on the Texas coast, but fishermen killed them and pesticide pollution reduce their nesting success. Between 1967 and 1974 fewer than 10 pairs bread each year along the Texas coast.
Today recovery efforts have been very successful and more than 800 Brown pelicans nest in the five counties around Galveston Bay. Pelicans prefer to nest on small isolated islands uninhabited by Coyotes or raccoons, predators that like to feast on eggs and small birds. Local Audubon Society chapter and state and federal resources agencies have worked to protect and enhance the nesting habitat of brown pelicans and other colonial nesting waterbirds. protection involves signage to reduce human disturbance, predator removal from nesting islands, and erosion control projects for nesting islands.
Colonial nesting birds are also benefiting from new concepts and beneficial use of dredged material. A new nesting island was constructed and lower Galveston Bay from the dredging of the Houston ship channel in 2000. Phil Glass observed that water birds colonized it quickly and nesting success resulted in a “tremendous fledgling rate” in 2001. Houston Audubon Society sanctuary manager Winifred Burkett look to the Future and stated “the first nesting season has already been a tremendous success and we anticipate that future nesting seasons will be even more successful and the new vegetation will attract and even greater variety of birds.”
The future appears bright for pelicans and most colonial nesting waterbirds in the Galveston Bay system as a result of efforts to protect and create nesting sites and to manage the biological productivity of the bay. One type of reward for the bay users from these management efforts will be the site of sailing pelicans, hovering terns and stalking herons around the bay for many years to come.