News Service July 17, 2003

88,000 Acres Near Del Rio Targeted

Group attempts largest private conservation effort in Texas

SAN ANTONIO -- Conservationists are purchasing 137 square miles of land in West Texas, including one of the state's most pristine rivers and a habitat for several endangered species.

The Nature Conservancy, through its pending purchase of almost 88,000 acres north of Del Rio, wants to protect land that falls into three distinct ecological regions in its largely natural state, excluding it from development in what may be the largest private conservation effort ever in Texas.

Officials of the land-protection group, based in suburban Washington, said they hope to sell the land to a single buyer or several buyers with restrictions attached that would ensure the property forever remains principally intact and unchanged.

The land nearly encircles the headwaters of the Devils River, fed by springs emanating from the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer, which then run through steep cliffs, limestone mesas and sculpted canyons for 60 miles before emptying into Lake Amistad, 25 miles north of Del Rio.

"What we're trying to do is protect the source," James King, The Nature Conservancy's West Texas program manager, told the San Antonio Express-News. "That's why we're there. It's the water."

But the property, carrying an asking price of $25 million, likely limited the number of conservation-minded people who could afford it, King said.

The not-for-profit conservancy has purchased two other tracts totaling about 40,000 acres downstream along the Devils since 1991.

The latest purchase in Val Verde County includes canyons that are home to endangered nesting black-capped vireos and endangered Texas snowbells. Many unique and rare species such as the Devils River minnow and the Dolan Spring salamander inhabit the river's turquoise-tinged waters.

The property also includes Fern Cave, the seasonal home to more than 1 million Mexican free-tailed bats. The cave, with a sinkhole entrance almost 100 feet deep, is one of the state's largest in terms of volume, according to The New Handbook of Texas.

The land, King said, encompasses eight historic ranches that had been consolidated a few years ago by Harold Nix, an attorney who helped settle the state's lawsuit against cigarette makers.

The group felt compelled to purchase the property after Nix put it on the market, King said. Conservationists feared that the property could have been cut up into ranchette-style developments that would pose a threat to water quality.

The river's banks are lined with cedar elm, live oak and willow trees used by birds of prey, songbirds and monarch butterflies.

The 87,760-acre tract falls into the Edwards Plateau, Chihuahuan Desert and Tamaulipian Thornscrub, the conservancy says.

"I suspect there are probably a few people out there that have the financial resources and the interest," King said, adding that buyers would be able to negotiate an agreement that would allow them to build a homestead, raise cattle or operate a hunting, fishing or eco-tourism business.