Conservation History Association of Texas
Texas Legacy Project
Oral History Interview
Nature Conservancy in Texas

Interviewee: Frank Klein
Date: June 6, 2022
Site: San Antonio, Texas
Reel: 3700
Executive Producer: Lydia Saldana
Producer: Jeff Weigel
Field Producer / Chief Interviewer: Lee Smith
Videographer: Curtis Craven
Writer / Editor: Ron Kabele
Transcriber: David Todd / Trint
Item: Klein_Frank_NCItem18_SanAntonioTX_20220606_Reel3700_Audio.mp3

[Bracketed numbers refer to the interview recording’s time code.]

Lee Smith [00:00:16] Where did you grow up?

Frank Klein [00:00:18] I grew up in South Texas. My father moved to Yorktown, Texas, when I was five, and then I went to high school in Yorktown, Texas all my life. In fact, we’ve got our 50th high school reunion graduation this next Saturday. So I’ve been there. It’s, I can’t believe it’s 50 years since we graduated.

Frank Klein [00:00:38] But my grandparents have owned the ranch there. His parents, my grandfather’s father bought it in 1878. So it’s been 100 and, what, 50 years we’ve had the ranch. I’m the fourth generation.

Frank Klein [00:00:51] So Daddy was involved in some civic stuff – mayor and city council. My mother was a schoolteacher, VOE, taught at the high school after we all left.

Frank Klein [00:01:03] And I was basically on the ranch. I ran bulldozers for different conservation contractors. So I’ve been involved in conservation work, digging ponds and that kind of thing. Brush clearing all my life, since I graduated out of high school.

Frank Klein [00:01:17] I went to college for a few years, thought I was going to be a preacher, and decided I, I had been out of high school for eight years and they wanted me to write what I did on my summer vacation. And I just, “Give me a break.” I’d roughnecked and everything else. So I said, “No, I don’t think this is for me.”

Frank Klein [00:01:35] But and then I was involved basically in ranching. And I used to read books on grazing rotations, that kind of thing. And originally the books that I read discouraged, you know, controlled burns and things. But now I try to do that. I can’t do that much anymore because of all the oil field stuff around and these insane burn bans in the counties.

Frank Klein [00:02:01] So that’s how I really got started, was ranching, because the purpose of ranching is to create life and the more conservation, less chemicals, more natural you get, the healthier things are, the healthier your cow is, the more calves she has, the more heavier calves she raises. So I’ve always tried to do that kind of thing.

Lee Smith [00:02:23] So on your ranch, you run cattle?

Frank Klein [00:02:25] I just sold out last year to a guy that had helped me for 20 years work the cattle. And I always told him that if I ever sold out, he could have first shot. And he took it. So the cows are still there. I sold them to him. So we all know each other on a first-name basis. So the cows, they all got to stay. Some of them are getting close to 20 years old now. I raised registered Beefmasters for a while. So the Brahman influence adds longevity. And as long as they have a calf, they can stay.

Frank Klein [00:02:54] So I’ve had a wonderful life. Absolutely delighted I could live on a ranch my whole life.

Lee Smith [00:03:01] Do you do any hunting out there at all?

Frank Klein [00:03:05] For a while. We had an overstock of white tails there for a while. And I know Texas Parks and Wildlife said we could kill deer – four each, two does and two bucks. I had a field, 55-acre wheat field, and I counted 75 does and four bucks on it. So Daddy shot four and I shot four and we cleaned them and butchered them our self.

Frank Klein [00:03:28] And after that I haven’t shot another one. We had 300 links of smoked sausage. And finally at the end we were given smoked sausage to the dogs because I couldn’t eat it any more. You know, too much of a good thing, you know.

Frank Klein [00:03:41] So we had it good, you know, I haven’t killed a deer since. And that’s been I don’t know how many years ago, but I don’t want to right now.

Frank Klein [00:03:49] It’s fawning time. And I’ve seen three or four. Because we have such tall grass, I don’t allow herbicide spraying or mow until August. So we have tall grass – native grasses. Indiangrass gets five feet high, and it’s crawling with little baby fawns. And I can show you pictures. I mean, we just saw two or three last week. So they’re having them right now.

Frank Klein [00:04:13] Yeah. So.

Lee Smith [00:04:15] Are you, how’s the drought treating you?

Lee Smith [00:04:19] Because we don’t overstock. The guy that I leased it to, William Moorewiss. I have, it’s approximately 1400 acres, and it’s limited to 100 head. And we do the rotation. And because we don’t overstock and never overgraze, I can take you out there and show you grass this high right now, you know.

Frank Klein [00:04:38] So, you may not make as much growth, but you net just as much because you’re not feeding and doing all these other things. So once you have organic material a foot deep on the ground, you get an inch of rain, it stays wet for… You have a mulch and we have varieties of native grasses.

Frank Klein [00:05:04] I did plant some improved grasses like Old World Bluestem, but we have a lot of Indiangrass, sideoats, little bluestem. I don’t have any big bluestems, switchgrasses, things like that.

Frank Klein [00:05:14] All the, you know, and the quail and the turkey, you know. At one time I counted over 200 turkeys in one, but now they moved away. I don’t know where they went, but you know, they’re like that.

Frank Klein [00:05:26] So I do nature photography and that also helps. I can document everything that I do.

Lee Smith [00:05:32] So was there any aspect of your early life that kind of got you into conservation?

Frank Klein [00:05:40] Well, hunting, hunting eggs with my grandmother, when you’re 4 or 5 years old, it don’t get much better than, you know, chasing chickens, going into the barn and finding the eggs. I don’t know if anybody ever did that, heaven on earth.

Frank Klein [00:05:52] And then the dogs and the cattle. And when you’re involved in ranching, you know where babies come from because you put the bull in and you see what happens, you know, that kind of thing.

Frank Klein [00:06:01] So as I said, if if your animals aren’t happy, you’re not making a living. And in order to make the animals happy and healthy, you do conservation or go broke or spend lots and lots of money, you know. So that’s basically where it came from.

Frank Klein [00:06:16] And my photography that has has really taught me to see things that I would never have seen. You look for things. Okay, what do you photograph? Well, here’s fungus. Here’s you know, this, here’s the wildflowers. I belong to the DeWitt County Wildflower Association of DeWitt County and learned all the different species along the sides of the road.

Frank Klein [00:06:36] We used to literally, I used to volunteer at this at the Cuero Historical Museum. And we had for April was Wildflower month. And basically we had people come from all over the world just to see these diverse wildflowers.

Frank Klein [00:06:52] I remember talking to a couple from New Zealand and they said they had been all over the world chasing wildflowers. And there’s there’s the California poppies where you have 2 or 3 species. We’ve got over 100, you know, bluebonnets, paint brushes, lizard tail gaura, I mean, name it, coreopsis, three different species of coreopsis. We’ve got four irises in the, wild irises, out in the pastures.

Frank Klein [00:07:17] But I will say this, that, on a sad note, basically our wildflowers in Texas are being exterminated. This is going to be the biggest catastrophe that Texas has ever committed in the history. All, go look on our sides of our roads. They’re all mowed. They started to mow them all down right now is when they’re mowing – first part of June, May, May and June are probably the most critical time for our wildlife.

Frank Klein [00:07:46] The turkeys are nesting, the quail are nesting, the songbirds are nesting on the ground. The baby fawns are being born as we speak. As I said, let’s go chop a few up. And if you don’t chop them up, let’s cut them all off so they have no place to live and hide. So the vultures eat them as soon as they come out, you know, and the coyotes.

Frank Klein [00:08:04] So I just wanted to say, I’ve said that I don’t know numerous times, this will go down in history as one of the biggest catastrophes, natural catastrophes, in the history of the state of Texas.

Frank Klein [00:08:15] All our pollinators are in trouble. So let’s destroy the food supply. It just snowballs. So when you mow the wildflowers down, they, the birds and things eat the seeds. Well, they’re gone.

Frank Klein [00:08:28] So that’s my soapbox. But I think it’s despicable.

Lee Smith [00:08:34] So what’s the solution?

Frank Klein [00:08:35] Well, the solution is simple. You quit mowing Texas roadsides. And I understand we used to years ago, they would do what they called a safety cut. That means on the sides of the roads, they would mow one 15 feet, you know, and leave the rest to seed out and stuff.

Frank Klein [00:08:53] And then August is mowing month. If you mow in August, all the wildflowers have seeded out. Most of the birds have all fledged and they can run away. The fawns are big enough that they can get up and run away.

Frank Klein [00:09:04] So it’s really simple, simple. Quit spending money to burn the fuel, to mow the flowers, to mow the, you know, the pollinators’ food supply, to mow the baby birds, squash their guts out under your wheels.

Frank Klein [00:09:16] I found, I should have took a picture of a baby fawn – head that had been cut. I saw the buzzards eating it. I should have. I didn’t have a camera, but that would have been – one picture is worth a thousand words.

Frank Klein [00:09:26] Some road mowing, I call them ecological, biological terrorists cutting down our wildflowers. There, I said it. Hear me?

Frank Klein [00:09:33] So if you’re one of those road-mowing terrorists, you and I are blood enemies. That a straight enough line?

Lee Smith [00:09:44] But haven’t they? Was there an alteration in the cutting schedule?

Frank Klein [00:09:50] Yes. Well, that’s what I’m saying. You know, I’m not an expert. I don’t know who’s taken over.

Frank Klein [00:09:57] But as I said before, we used to have the DeWitt County Wildflower Association and we’d try to rein in the county commissioners from destroying the wildflowers. It was a big tourist deal before all the, all the oilfield. As I said, people would literally come from all over the world. I used to go to California. I saw the California poppies just to go photograph the wildflowers.

Frank Klein [00:10:17] Well, most cotton choppers don’t understand that, you know, “Them wildflowers, that’s weeds”, you know, let’s pump some poison, you know?

Frank Klein [00:10:25] And now picloram, they found out now stays on the ground forever. So I do spray, spot-spray brush on my fence lines. But I told William that he leases mine, if you ever broadcast P+D out here, the lease is terminated, and I’ll try to throw you in jail.

Frank Klein [00:10:43] So another straight line. You know, so anyone here can understand.

Lee Smith [00:10:53] Well you told me about hunting eggs with your grandmother. Is there any other? What’s kind of your first remembrance of being outside and kind of going…

Lee Smith [00:11:05] Wow? Well, daddy. I have to give my daddy credit. Do he? He used to make some purple martin houses, and that was the first time that I ever really noticed. You know, when you’re a kid, you’re unconscious. And we’d raise purple martins every year. So that was kind of a neat thing.

Frank Klein [00:11:24] And that led into one of my biggest projects that I ever took on. Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine (I know that’s one of the questions of books) but Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine ran an article on blue bird nest boxes, and we had just tore down an old barn with wood that was 100 years old and it was one-by-twelves. So it showed how to make these blue bird nest boxes.

Frank Klein [00:11:47] But before I did that, we had, what led to that, was they’d take down these old telephone poles. Well, woodpeckers, because the woodpeckers had dug. So we just cut one off, you know, mounted it on a T-post where the, you know, where the woodpecker hole was. Bluebird moved in it as soon as we put it up.

Frank Klein [00:12:09] So I started with five of those, made five of those nest boxes. And we had tufted titmice and bluebirds. And this got into, you know, out of control, as it always does. I had 135 blue bird nest boxes. We’d have 50 pairs nesting in the spring. And I get a … I used to take them down in the winter. They would be waiting in the trees for me to put them up.

Lee Smith [00:12:41] So what kind of connection did that give you?

Frank Klein [00:12:45] Well, you know, it’s a spiritual thing. I’ve lately been trying to figure out what is consciousness. Is there life after death? We all ask that question. Is there life after death? What is consciousness? What does it mean to be conscious? Is a bug conscious?

Frank Klein [00:13:05] I’ve had some interesting discussions with Dr. Candace Phelan, who’s a Ph.D. and she was actually human resources for Lockheed Martin, and would groom the next CEOs for Lockheed Martin.

Frank Klein [00:13:21] We got into talking about, well, what is you know, she was on a spiritual journey. I was on a spiritual journey. And we taught each other these things. And I, my goal in life now is okay, just to be banal, you like the color blue? Why do you like the color blue? You know, what does it do for you? All these kind of things, that connotation.

Frank Klein [00:13:41] Okay. I’ve been photographing. I call it life on the fence. All these strikes stick the bugs on the fences. I’ve got a whole series now of photographs with tarantulas and and lizards and even snakes. And when the dew covers them, one of the tarantulas was upside down and looks like he has tears running down. It’s extremely moving.

Frank Klein [00:14:03] Okay. I’m giving anthropomorphic characteristics to a bug. Do they feel anything? What is their nervous system? You can pull a grasshoppers head off and he’ll live for 2 to 3 days. Does he have a brain? Can he feel it, that he doesn’t have a head? Does he? You know.

Frank Klein [00:14:19] There must be some kind of consciousness there, because if you try to swat a fly, try to swat a fly and see if you can swat him. Now, he must be self-aware, but we don’t know what kind of intelligence that is.

Frank Klein [00:14:32] You know, so, nature has taught me so many things, too, of the preciousness and the sacredness of life. So I’m a 100,000% pro-life. As I said, my whole job in life is to create life. Protect life, healthy life. So that’s what being a rancher is.

Frank Klein [00:14:57] For those of you who don’t ranch, that’s what it is. A healthy calf, a healthy baby calf, is a miracle. And if you’ve done everything right and you have healthy pastures and you’ve got wildflowers and you’ve got all these other things, the intricacies and the interconnectedness of all of it is if you become aware, that’s what I’m talking about, becoming aware again. Once you start to see things, you see other things, and then you see other things. And the more you learn, the less you know kind of thing. So I am in awe of nature.

Frank Klein [00:15:28] And also I’ve gotten into collecting some art pieces too, so that also helps you see.

Lee Smith [00:15:35] So how did you become interested in conservation issues?

Frank Klein [00:15:40] Well, as part of it, I used to go to all the soil and water conservation districts in DeWitt County. And because I was involved in digging, you know, tanks to spec for the what, it used to be Soil Conservation Service? Big change now. I don’t know what. They’ve had a bunch of different names, but because those people would come out and stake out the tanks for us and then we’d have to dig them to specs and then they would approve it or disapprove it.

Frank Klein [00:16:08] I got involved in listening to those things and digging tanks, clearing brush, that kind of thing. And then I had earlier on, like I said, when I was a freshman in high school, I started to read all these books about, you know, rotating pastures and how to manage.

Frank Klein [00:16:25] And I’m trying to think when I first found out about the bats. Where I really got interested in the bats, or started to really appreciate what a bat was and did, was when I bought. The Nature Conservancy had invited me to Bracken Bat Cave. And that’s unbelievable.

Frank Klein [00:16:50] And if you want to know what a little angel is, “angel” translates to messenger. They can see in the dark. They can find their own baby out of, I don’t know what, 10 million babies up in a dome. If that ain’t a miracle. And it’s like winning the lottery every night because mama comes home to you hanging up there on that ceiling in the pitch black. You sit there with your mouth hanging open.

Frank Klein [00:17:17] And the person who did the talk at Bracken said how those bats, 10 million, whatever, they eat, the volume of two 747 jet airliners every night.

Frank Klein [00:17:29] So think of the ecology and how wonderful. Here we have this wonderful creature that all he wants to do is live in the ground, be left alone, and eat our insect population for us. If that is … that is why I do what I do.

Frank Klein [00:17:48] And the Cibolo Bluffs, it’s now the Frank Klein Cibolo Bluffs Nature Preserve because of those little angels.

Lee Smith [00:17:58] What’s what’s the connection between Cibolo Bluffs and Bracken?

Frank Klein [00:18:02] That’s the area that surrounds Bracken Bat Cave. Isn’t that correct? And so development was encroaching on all that. And you had street lights that were going to be here, you know, within 100 yards of the of the cave and that would screw up the bats being able to navigate. Here’s all these bright lights, you know.

Frank Klein [00:18:22] And so whoever … and I said this at the dedication when they dedicated it, I thank the people who started this, whoever the Nature Conservancy was involved, I think there was, you know, all the different people.

Jeff Weigel [00:18:38] Bat Conservation International.

Frank Klein [00:18:40] Bat Conservation International and a few other individuals and organizations. And and that was extremely farsighted. Thanks. Y’all ought to thank God every night for people that do that.

Frank Klein [00:18:56] They’re worth millions to me. And I put my money where my mouth is. I’m not bragging. It was a gift from God to have this oil come out of the ground with the Eagleford Shale.

Frank Klein [00:19:05] And if I can save the little angels.

[00:19:07] They’re safe now, because of the people who came before me and I helped finish the deal. So I don’t take any credit for that other than I had the money to finish the deal and now they’re safe. The bats are safe.

Lee Smith [00:19:27] Right place, right time.

Frank Klein [00:19:28] Correct.

Frank Klein [00:19:31] You can’t out-give God.

Lee Smith [00:19:35] And it’s. Do you think you were destined to to be there at that time?

Frank Klein [00:19:43] I have no idea. You know, I certainly don’t understand all the machinations of the Almighty. Look at me.

Frank Klein [00:19:51] You know, I heard a, I heard a comic one time said, “You know, they say we’re all created in God’s image, but look at me. He said, my hair is falling out.” And the funniest thing he says, “You know, I thought about, you know, lifting weights. But, you know, the trouble with lifting weights, they’re just so doggone heavy.” And also, he said, “When God made me in his image”, he said, “Did he have his earphones on? And his favorite song came on the radio and he got, you know, distracted, you know?”

Frank Klein [00:20:23] So that has stuck with me ever since, you know. So I have two eyes, nose and mouth, and I can walk and chew gum at the same time. And I can hear and see. And as I said, I’m working on the understanding part.

Frank Klein [00:20:37] So it’s been quite the journey and the little angels like the Mexican free-tailed bats have been a big part of it. If you could, if you understand, they tell you, you know.

Frank Klein [00:20:48] But you have to talk bat talk. You have to be able to understand what’s going on. You have to see how this is connected to that. And I, I’m trying real hard.

Lee Smith [00:20:59] When was the last time you were up there?

Frank Klein [00:21:02] When they had the dedication. When was that? September of this year, last year? I think it was. Yeah, I think it was back in September. And I haven’t. Well, and I also own, I did own the Monarch Ranch in Val Verde County and that had the fern cave on it and we’ll touch on that. I had biologists from the U.K. and Netherlands come there. And you know what they want to study? The bedbug that sucks on the bats.

Frank Klein [00:21:33] And finally, I asked Jim Kennedy, who’s with the Bat Conservation International. They would come every other year in February or so and go down and and monitor the bats and what they find.

Frank Klein [00:21:46] And I finally said, “Jim, what’s the deal on the on the bedbug? And he said, “It is an extremely ancient form of life and the parts and, you know, anatomy is very, very primitive.”

Frank Klein [00:22:00] So that’s why they want to study the, of all the things to study, it would be a bedbug that sucks on a bat, but it’s because it’s an ancient, ancient form of life.

Frank Klein [00:22:09] Fast! See, there’s another thing, you know from nature, that the facets of it are just. You know, the more you get in it, the more you get out of it and the deeper it gets.

Lee Smith [00:22:24] Well, and we’re just rolleing right through. Yeah. Yeah. About why the protection is important. And how does it relate to Bracken Caves, Cibolo? I’m just kind of going down. We covered kind of, who were the key players in that.

Lee Smith [00:22:39] And then what other species besides bat benefit from similar Cibolo Bluffs?

Frank Klein [00:22:43] Well, the golden-cheeked warbler, I mean all native species as long as it’s native. You know, I know they have old-growth cedar trees and that’s what the golden-cheeked warblers tear the strips to make their nest. But I know I saw bluebird nest boxes out there. There’s any indigenous species. Any time, you know, if you let things grow and you do control burns and you keep things in balance, if you build it, they will come story. And it’s just amazing. That’s…

Frank Klein [00:23:14] And then also that is on the recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer. So if we have pristine land on top, you’ll have pristine water underneath and that’s that’s the game plan, kids. You know, so if you don’t have water, you got nothing.

Frank Klein [00:23:33] So how did you become interested in the Devil’s River area?

Frank Klein [00:23:37] My realtor, Jeff Boswell. I was looking for land when Barack Obama was elected. I was hunting for some place to put money because I had figured with a Democrat in power we were going to have runaway inflation. But that didn’t turn out then like it has now. So I had some of this money. It’s a long story. I had had people trying to buy my royalties or mineral rights after the Eagle Ford Shale hit.

Frank Klein [00:24:06] Well, this one company just told me that I could do a 1031 exchange. Being a poor rancher, I had no idea what was a 1031 exchange. Well, you can take, like-kind money and exchange it, and I can take my royalty money, buy this 40,000-acre ranch. They would pay me the money. It goes into an escrow account, and then I take like money and exchange it for property, property for property. And there’s no taxes. There’s no capital gains taxes on that.

Frank Klein [00:24:37] So what are we waiting for? You know, so as as Jeff Boswell took me out there. There was actually an article about it in Texas Monthly where they interviewed Jeff Boswell and he was talking about how I bought this. We looked at it about three hours and I said, “I’ll take it”, because we went over there and we rode over the Devil’s River on this low-water bridge. I own a bridge with a river running under it, and there’s crystal-clear water? I cast a lure out there and caught a bass about that big. And there was smallmouth in there. And there was a few other species that are nowhere else, I think.

Frank Klein [00:25:18] And anyway, yeah, for an old nature guy and photographer, match made in heaven, kids, you know.

Frank Klein [00:25:28] And the Nature Conservancy had already put a, it’s a long story, but they had sold it to another man and he was supposed to put a conservation easement on it and didn’t. So they took it back and and then I bought it with the conservation easement on it so that it would never be developed or we’d have 100-yard lots, you know, which would destroy the whole integrity of the river and the habitat and all this. So it’s pristine.

Frank Klein [00:25:54] The Hudspeth Ranch is north of me. It comes out of the ground. They call it the Pecan Springs, I think. So, two miles down the river, it flows through my ranch. I had six miles of the Devil’s River. So here you have this spring-fed river, the cleanest river in Texas, and no one knew about it because it was way out in West Texas. So what’s not to love?

Frank Klein [00:26:18] And then we had some historical sites like Hudson, Camp Hudson, which was an old cavalry camp. It wasn’t a fort. We found the old rock wall where they had they had camel experiments where they tried to camels, but their feet are too soft.

Frank Klein [00:26:35] You know, they’re dromedaries and they don’t have a hoof. They have like pads like a dog. So the thorns ate their lunch.

Frank Klein [00:26:42] But there was I’ve had the Texas Historical Society come out there and look for artifacts and things, and it’s, the history is amazing. So yeah, I, I just sold it. There’s a cemetery.

Frank Klein [00:26:57] I just, I’m getting older and I, you know, where’s my watch? Where’s my wallet? Where’s my glasses? You know, I did that yesterday. Who are you? And it doesn’t get better. And I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Frank Klein [00:27:14] So I, it got sold – two 20,000-acre tracts. One, I think the the Rachal Foundation in Corpus. And they’re working with Texas Parks and Wildlife that I think they’re going to try to make either a state park or something where they put into the Devils River. That’s with the state.

Frank Klein [00:27:34] And then also the other side is another company, wildlife group, that I think does hunts and things like that. But Jeff assured me it was going to go to good hands. Jeff and Charles Davidson are with Republic Ranches and I think it went to pretty good hands.

Lee Smith [00:27:51] This was… the name of it was?

Frank Klein [00:27:52] This was, I called it the Monarch Ranch because it was on the monarch migration trail. I have pictures of draperies of of the monarchs hanging in the trees. Amazing.

Lee Smith [00:28:06] What’s it like when they’re in the air on on a clear day?

Frank Klein [00:28:11] Well, they they they’re they’re a shadow of themselves. They’ve been so decimated through, as I said, ecoterrorism and then the herbicide spraying and then the milkweeds have been extirpated, especially up north. It takes … that’s another miracle.

Frank Klein [00:28:28] OK. You have four generations. Start in Mexico. They head north. Four generations to get as far north as they go and then four generations to come back. How on earth does an insect possibly know which way to go and to go back to where they spent the summer, the winter in Mexico?

Frank Klein [00:28:52] There’s another consciousness that I don’t think we’ve even touched. We think we’re smart. We don’t know anything. If you had a kid and he’d never been to Mexico, would he know where to go and to go to the same? I don’t know if it’s the same tree, but he’s going to the same area, you know, And his your great grandchild would go there, right? Yeah. Four generations and had never been there before.

Frank Klein [00:29:17] There’s all kinds of things like that in nature, you know, the birds migrating.

Frank Klein [00:29:20] And I get emotional. I think now that I’m older, I really and truly understand more things.

Lee Smith [00:29:30] Do you remember the first time you were out there and looked up and like had to stare, at night?

Frank Klein [00:29:40] Well. Yes. Well, see, because I live in the country, I don’t have as much light pollution there at Garfield, Texas. But especially in west Texas, I had people come and they’d stand there with their mouth hanging open, “I didn’t know there were that many stars in the sky.” Well, they had never … they lived in big cities. And that was … you could see the Milky Way. You know, the thick part of the Milky Way through there. And there’s billions and billions of stars and. And I just.

Frank Klein [00:30:14] What was his name? The old … billions and billions of stars. What was his name? You know who I’m talking about.

Jeff Weigel [00:30:21] Carl Sagan.

Frank Klein [00:30:22] Carl Sagan. There you are. There you go. I remember that. And that’s the truth.

Frank Klein [00:30:26] And but I the first time that I ever I had it took quite a while for me to see the bats come out, emergence at Fern Cave after I bought the place because, well, they’re not coming out. Well, finally, I just said, “I’m going to stay.” And they do. It does vary.

Frank Klein [00:30:41] And finally, about 6:00 one night, they started coming out. It sounds like a fire burning because the wings can tap each other. And if you close your eyes and here’s I have slow-motion video now that I took and your mouth will hang open when they’re spinning. Millions. Another miracle. I’ve seen all kinds of miracles.

Lee Smith [00:31:11] So the conservation easement was in place before you purchased it?

Frank Klein [00:31:17] Correct.

Lee Smith [00:31:18] And was that a favorable thing or or were you concerned about it in your purchase?

Frank Klein [00:31:26] Well, it’s both.

Frank Klein [00:31:28] It’s good that it stopped development and it’s bad that it stopped development because one of the things that happened. Way on the west side, there’s there’s two highways. There’s Highway 163, which kind of goes through the middle of it. And then I had wings on both sides, hence the Monarch ranch. And then the the the Devils River went through the middle.

Frank Klein [00:31:48] And there was, I think, was it 1063? It’s some small farm to market paved road on the west side. And there’s a there’s a high line that goes through there. And I had a company that wanted to put solar panels up there, and I could have made, you know, $100,000 or more a year in rent just to put solar panels up. But because the conservation easement was on there, I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t develop it.

Frank Klein [00:32:13] So there’s, you know, it’s good and it’s bad, depending on your point of view.

Frank Klein [00:32:18] I don’t want houses, but that did affect that profitability of the ranch there.

Frank Klein [00:32:28] You know, and I, to me, solar panels, they’re silent. They’re not spinning. They were all on the ground. You know, you can have a couple of hundred acres of it. And I don’t know what the megawattage is on that kind of thing, but it’s clean. It’s silent. And you would have had jobs for somebody in Comstock, Texas.

Frank Klein [00:32:45] I drove Comstock, Texas, to go on all the roads one time. Border Patrol stopped me. They wanted to know what I was doing. I said, “Well, I’m seeing I wanted to see the highlights of Comstock. And it didn’t take long.”

Frank Klein [00:33:02] And he laughed and, well, they were wondering who this guy was. I was driving on every it’s only, what, ten streets. So me and my mom, when my mom was still alive, we wanted to go see the highlights of Comstock.

Frank Klein [00:33:11] We ate at the what’s it? The J and B Grill? I think that’s what it is there in Comstock. And I said, “Well, let’s go see what’s in Comstock”, because I paid school taxes there and stuff. So it didn’t take long. But they … I was suspicious driving up and down. Half the town’s houses were empty. But as I said, we saw the highlights of Comstock and it didn’t take long. We did see the school.

Lee Smith [00:33:43] So what would be your pitch to somebody kind of like you to participate in some of this stuff with the Nature Conservancy?

Frank Klein [00:33:55] Well, if you like eating and you, like, drinking clean water and you, like, living and you like to recreate. Recreation means to recreate. There’s nothing better than going to a spring-fed creek and sitting there and listen to the water run and very Zen.

Frank Klein [00:34:15] And also safeguards our food supply. Safeguards … I want to try to safeguard the foundation of our food supply, which is the wildflowers. And, you know, let’s start there and work our way up. And if we do that, we’ll we’ll save everything else.

Frank Klein [00:34:33] Educate people. They weren’t in a rural setting like I was. As I said, we used to have a Wildflower Association and the people are out there that. But they’re harder and harder to find. The Conservancies, the Nature Conservancy. You know, Bat Conservation. I try to. If someone wants to give a talk on wildflowers or birds, go to it. I mean, there’s nature clubs in different places.

Frank Klein [00:35:04] You ain’t missing nothing in immorality in whatever you want to do and inebriation and fornication and whatever. I mean, it looks great at first, but, you know, the chickens come home to roost and.

Frank Klein [00:35:21] Children, you know, if you listen to these little angels that are all around you telling you things, the little birds and the flowers and the you know, and the bats. Go to the bat cave and listen them tell you what a miracle that is. And you, I’ve had people with their mouth hanging open. I had no idea.

Frank Klein [00:35:39] So, yeah, to the parents and the children and young people, learn as much about nature and you will learn.

Frank Klein [00:35:47] I want, there’s no such thing as, in a sense, as morality in nature. Because if there were, we wouldn’t have roundworms and ticks and fleas. But in evolution, there’s only two. There’s the successful and the unsuccessful. If you’re unsuccessful, you go extinct.

Frank Klein [00:36:05] But I think there’s some greater Being controlling things. I’m proof of that, I think.

Frank Klein [00:36:16] And if you can get involved in some of the art world. I’m involved in all kinds. I collect art. I met, I’m going to drop a name – Kent Ullberg, a world famous bronze sculptor. I met him. Oh, we hit it off, you know, two nature guys hit. And he’s originally from Sweden, and and his wife is from Belgium.

Frank Klein [00:36:39] And he does, he has these huge bronze statues down there in Corpus. All kinds. If you look at it. He did, he was with three other sculptors that did, what is it? – a three block, ten block – in what’s, where was it up north? Michigan? Nebraska. Where they did the wagon trains going through. And he did a lot of the animals and things.

Frank Klein [00:37:05] So that we’re talking world-class people and these world-class artists, if they’re conservative people, can you just have to stand back in awe – the way they think, the way they see, the things they they understand.

Frank Klein [00:37:19] He loves nature. And he said one time, I read it, that he found (he lives in Corpus now or part of the time) and found a dead bird in the in and floating in the ocean. He picked it up and was examining it because he’s, you know, he’s a sculptor and he wants to see things. And he could see the bird’s eye and everything. He said, “I could see God Almighty in that dead bird’s eye.”

Frank Klein [00:37:41] Now you have to be an artist to go that far. But he’s, he’s on his, he’s there. You know, or he could not do what he does. You could not. The common denominator is L-O-V-E, love. He loves those animals. He was in Africa and did a bunch of sculptures of the African animals and things.

Frank Klein [00:38:03] But you meet people like that in the art world and because we’re nature guys and I did bluebird nests and all that stuff, you bond instantly with other conservationists. So here’s these world-class people talking to a farmer and rancher from Garfield.

Frank Klein [00:38:21] But we had our love of nature to bond us. So there is a brotherhood. If you want to get into the real brotherhood, get into nature conservation, you know, and you will meet people that are just fantastic.

Lee Smith [00:38:39] So what is your outlook on the future of conservation?

Frank Klein [00:38:44] Well, I hope people can understand what’s happening now with the road. I call it the road-mowing ecoterrorism of the Texas highways. I just saw where, I guess it’s the highway department, mowed down all the wildflowers and planted palm trees and these shrubs and things when all we had to do was let the wildflowers seed out and not mow them till August or do a safety cut on both sides of the road.

Frank Klein [00:39:08] And God Almighty himself gave us these hundreds of species of beautiful wildflowers. It will become one of the icons of Texas is bluebonnets and paint brushes, Indian paint brushes. Go find one. You know, they’ve all been pretty much exterminated.

Frank Klein [00:39:28] I cry almost. I get into tears. I get so angry and I can’t. Now we have individuals who are out trying to outdo each other on their road-mowing terrorist attacks. Individually, they got to go out. They don’t just move ten feet on each side of their driveway. They got to go mow a mile of the wildflowers down and they just think they caught a big hog in the ham. And what they’re saying is a road-mowing terrorist lives here.

Frank Klein [00:40:00] Well, a lot of the programs – you’re doing the oysters down there in the bay now, I mean, there’s a lot of programs that the Nature Conservancy is involved in that I support financially. One of my pet things was was the bat cave, Bracken Bat Cave. That came to my attention because of Nature Conservancy. I know the the Love Creek preservation is only a few 20 miles from my other ranch in Leakey, Texas.

Frank Klein [00:40:26] And I’m just the scientists, you, most most of the people are pretty good. I mean, they’re if they didn’t love nature, hopefully they wouldn’t be involved in this. They don’t have some ulterior motive.

Frank Klein [00:40:50] But if I know I got to see Powderhorn Ranch, you know, they just took that and made that a state park. Correct?

Frank Klein [00:40:58] So here we’re trying to save parts of Texas and keep it pristine. And by keeping it pristine, you know, here’s here’s the slogan, “Save the wildflowers, save the world.” And that’s not an exaggeration. So as you save these native grasses and plants and name it, you have these, it benefits us all. As I said, clean water, clean air, good, healthy food is heaven on earth.

Frank Klein [00:41:30] And I’ve worked with especially Renee King a lot has been really kind to me and has guided me as the old rancher from Garfield and informed me, and so has Jeff here, Weigel, to the possibilities of what I can do to help keep Texas pristine. And that’s that’s what I’m trying to say is, they’ve helped me and I’ve helped them. I mean, we have our common goal is, is life, to create life, preserve life. How better than you know, go stand there, go to Bracken Bat Cave and watch that miracle. You’ll be a different person. Everyone who ever has gone is.