As Hurricane Harvey crept closer to the Texas Coast last August, tensions rose. What would happen to the coastline鈥攁nd those who lived there鈥攊n the face of such a destructive force of nature? Days later, after the storm blasted Corpus Christi and dumped more than 50 inches of rain on Houston, 约炮视频鈥檚 Victoria Vazquez and her team were out in boats to answer that question.
Vazquez, the coastal conservation program manager for , leads a team of four working to restore and create critical habitat for thousands of migratory birds鈥攊ncluding Reddish Egrets, Black Skimmers and Gull-Billed Terns鈥攖hat pass through the Gulf Coast each year. It was her strong affinity for animals that eventually brought her to 约炮视频: As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Vazquez regularly asked her family鈥檚 veterinarian if she could work for him. She held him to his word when she turned 15. She then went on to study biology, homing in on diseases in amphibians for her doctorate work. A series of conservation projects across the country followed, each targeting different species and habitats. 鈥淚 really feel very strongly that helping all animals is what I鈥檓 meant to do,鈥 Vazquez says.
After Harvey, Vasquez and her team found glimmers of hope amongst all of the destruction. Many of the barrier islands in Galveston Bay made it through unscathed, and they even helped prevent storm-surge damage along that area of the Texas coast.
Other islands didn鈥檛 fare so well, though. Harvey tore eight acres off of Chester Island in Matagorda Bay鈥攐ne of the most important bird nesting sites in the region. Vazquez鈥檚 team had worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to add 26 acres of habitat to this island, a project that had just come to completion. 鈥淭o then quickly lose about eight acres, that just makes our work that much more difficult,鈥 she says.
In addition to surveying habitat, Vazquez and her team worked on a number of rookery islands to unearth vegetation buried by storm-driven sand, remove debris, and plant trees. Over the next few months, she鈥檒l continue boating out to island nesting sites to monitor how bird populations and vegetation swamped by saltwater during Harvey may change in years to come.
To help Texas weather future storms, Vazquez and her team are working with the Army Corps of Engineers once again, this time to build four new islands in Matagorda Bay. Those islands, created with dredge spoils hauled up from a local shipping channel, will provide critical roosting and nesting habitat for thousands of resident and migratory birds. The more islands available for nesting, says Vazquez, the more resilient bird populations will be to future devastation. A feasibility study for this project will be completed by December.
When approaching her work, Vazquez knows she must strike a balance between the needs of people and birds along the busy corridor of the Gulf of Mexico, where shipping and development fuel the economy. But as the ecotourism industry strengthens in the region, those needs increasingly go hand in hand. 鈥淭here are many people who come to the Texas coast just for birds, so providing habitat for them is critical to the economy,鈥 she says.
Reflecting on her path from veterinary clinic to defender of Texas avifauna, Vazquez says her most formative role models growing up were her hardworking parents, who instilled in her a willingness to keep pushing even when faced with adversity on the level of a hurricane. In particular, she attributes her focus and determination to having a father who never treated her any differently than her brother. 鈥淭here was never a 鈥榞irls should behave this way鈥 kind of thing,鈥 she says. 鈥淭here was never any holding me back in any way.鈥
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