Texas parks department set to buy rugged tract in the Big Bend
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission moved this week to initiate the purchase of 16,000 acres in the Big Bend borderlands that would expand the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area and preserve a key piece of riverfront real estate in a remote, largely pristine corner of the state.
The Black Gap land covers more than 100,000 acres of unforgiving mountainous, desert landscape to the east of Big Bend National Park. The piece of land eyed by the commission borders the Rio Grande for seven miles.
Commissioners ordered Texas Parks and Wildlife Department staffers Thursday to negotiate a contract with the General Land Office, which owns the land. The sale would keep virtually all the Big Bend portion of Rio Grande riverfront — habitat for big-horn sheep, mule deer and black bears — in a conservation-oriented state. Construction company CEMEX USA owns a large adjacent parcel and has pledged to keep it undeveloped. Nearly all the rest of the land bordering the Rio Grande in the region falls within the national park and Big Bend Ranch State Park.
Three-quarters of the purchase price, which is likely to be between $5.6 million and $8 million, according to state parks officials, will come from federal tax money raised from the sale of firearms, archery equipment and ammunition.
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The road that winds beside a pen where relocated mule deer are kept for a few weeks to help adapt to their new environment at the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area on Feb. 28, 2017. Directly in the distance is Mexico. The Texas Park and Wildlife Commission this week gave the first steps to purchase 16,000 acres in the Big Bend borderlands to expand Black Gap. DEBORAH CANNON / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Texas parks department set to buy rugged tract in the Big Bend
