The Delores Fenwick Nature Center (DFNC) is now home to 12 Texas Horned Lizards. The six pairs of lizards were brought to Pearland from West Texas in June by Pearland Parks & Recreation Department Natural Resources Manager, Cullen Ondracek.
What started out just as a conversation with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) about a year and a half ago turned into a reality June 2022. The DFNC plans to help protect this native wildlife species through captive breeding in hopes of reestablishing populations where they once were not too long ago.
“We are doing this good work to add back to the Texas Horned Lizards numbers each year,” Ondracek said. “I have heard countless stories of childhood memories from folks who remember seeing them in their backyard growing up. They have disappeared from the eastern part of the state now, but they used to be here too.”
The DFNC staff plans to place all captive produced eggs in an incubator, then transition the hatched lizards to aquarium tanks where they will stay for 1-3 months before going back to the wild at TPWD release sites.
Every year the pairings will rotate for better genetic diversity. The DFNC will keep the original 12 adult lizards for as long as they live to continuously aid in conservation efforts with each new group of eggs.
The lizards are currently not available for public viewing just yet while they adjust to their new home and captive breeding, but the DFNC hopes to open them to the public in the future for even more educational opportunities.
