Hail to the Trail!By Mary-Love Bigony
The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail
Meet the Travelers
Ted Lee Eubanks is president of Fermata, Inc., an Austin-based nature tourism consulting firm. He conceived, designed and executed the plan for the GTCBT under contract with Texas Parks and Wildlife. He traveled thousands of miles visiting every single one of the trail's 308 sites during the planning process, but this was his first time to drive its entire length. Bob Behrstock of Houston is a biological consultant working for Fermata who did many of the site evaluations for the trail. For the last 19 years, he has led birding tours to various locations around the world. Linda Campbell is a biologist with TPW's Wildlife Diversity Program, which manages the GTCBT. As the agency's nature tourism coordinator and project leader for the GTCBT, Linda wanted to drive the trail as tourists would, making sure the signs were easy to follow and acquainting herself with the trail's offerings. Last fall, three people with a past, present, and future interest in the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail (GTCBT) made a weeklong trek along the entire trail, beginning in the Pineywoods and ending - exhausted, sleep-deprived but happy - on the banks of the Rio Grande near Laredo.While the group didn't drive each of the loops or stop at each of the 308 sites (that would have taken months) they visited representative sites on the trail and gained a sense of its scope and impressive diversity. GORP thanks Texas Parks and Wildife magazine for permission to use this article.
The details, dates, and prices mentioned in this article were accurate at the time of publication.
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