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

Interviewee: Robert McCurdy
Date: May 10, 2022
Site: Austin, Texas
Reels: 3452-3454
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: McCurdy_Robert_NCItem19_AustinTX_20220510_Reel3452-3454_Audio.mp3

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

Robert McCurdy [00:00:16] I was named after a scoundrel. And I’m like, “Why the hell did you name me after him?” Anyway, Robert Newport McCurdy, the second.

Lee Smith [00:00:25] M-C-C-U-R-D-Y.

Robert McCurdy [00:00:28] Correct.

Lee Smith [00:00:28] All right. So where did you grow up?

Robert McCurdy [00:00:31] Fort Worth.

Lee Smith [00:00:32] And is there any aspect of your early childhood that you can remember that kind of led you to the natural world?

Robert McCurdy [00:00:43] That’s that’s really good. Yeah. We had a dairy farm in the Trinity River bottom, backed right up to the Trinity River before it was all dammed and regulated flood control. We flooded out twice. Serious big floods. But we had this dairy farm there and then leased land around for hay farms and stuff.

Robert McCurdy [00:01:06] And I had the run of that whole Trinity River bottom there on the farm. And I spent so much time down there in the woods and fields and waters alone. Occasionally I’d have friends, but mainly alone, that my parents took me to, thank God for Dr. Bill Terrell, they took me to, and he was just a pediatrician, but he was a great one.

Robert McCurdy [00:01:34] And they took me to my childhood doctor and asked him what was wrong with me because I’d spent so much time alone out there roaming in the woods and all that stuff, you know?

Robert McCurdy [00:01:46] And thank God he interviewed me and pretended to be a psychologist, which he was pretty good and later told them, “I think he just loves the woods and waters, I think.” And that was it.

Robert McCurdy [00:02:02] Nobody showed me nothing. I was born to it. It possessed me. It inspirited me, if I can use a word. That was clearly me, it was deep in me and so deep that I was there a lot. And I was kind of a loner. And I was. But I wasn’t lonely. I was so – enraptured – is not too strong a word by all of that.

Robert McCurdy [00:02:32] What a lucky, lucky. You know, I was adopted under not legal circumstances and that I was brought into a family like that. We weren’t the tightest knit family. It was a pretty weird family in a lot of respects.

Robert McCurdy [00:02:50] But by God, we had that little dairy farm, Broad Valley Farms. We were the last dairy to deliver the milk to your door and trade your bottles and all that – “Home of the Golden Guernsey”.

Robert McCurdy [00:03:03] And we had all that beautiful bottomland down there, you know, and some of it was pasture land and a lot of it was still woods. And then all the high bluffs over the Trinity River with soft shells and gar and all, you know, all that and still abundant wildlife even though we were very close, we were not that far off from a big country club, Rivercrest Country Club. And we were down at the end of a street.

Robert McCurdy [00:03:34] And then you went down a steep hill and there was all that bottom land and we had the dairy farm right there, and we’d open to the public on the weekends and we had a church and a town hall and a clubhouse and a burger joint and dairy bar. And we’d open to the public on the weekends.

Robert McCurdy [00:03:50] But other than that, it was shut down and free-roaming cows and me free-roaming that bottomland. And it went deep in me. And that was that. That was a done deal. After that, there was no other possibility for my life than to be deeply possessed by the outdoors, if you will.

Lee Smith [00:04:13] Okay. So did you ever have a family member or a mentor?

Robert McCurdy [00:04:17] See, that’s one of the questions. And so the answer is “no”. I was more into it. I already knew more by the age of, or at least I thought I did, by the age of six or whatever than any of them.

Robert McCurdy [00:04:31] But so remember my story about them taking me to the doctor? “What’s wrong with him?” I had a cousin George, who at that, when I first was adopted, was probably living in Covington or Hammond. He lived in both places, Louisiana. I had relatives down there, by adoption. And George and he was a hound hunter, gator poacher, whatever. And he was a cousin of mine.

Robert McCurdy [00:05:03] Well, when I was 11 or thereabouts. He moved up to Fort Worth with his wife and two boys to go to work for my father in the oil-leasing business. My father had a strategy in the oil business. Let’s lease America. It cost him dearly later.

Robert McCurdy [00:05:24] But anyway, George loved it because he could go out to the wilds and talk to all these landowners, back when oil leases were a very different thing, you know, very different animal.

Robert McCurdy [00:05:38] And but George loved it because he’d go out exploring and looking for places to hunt and fish and everything. And oh then, by the way, talk to the land owner, see if he wants to grant us, you know, a mineral lease.

Robert McCurdy [00:05:51] And so George moved up and he brought some of his Walker hounds with him and all that, and I can say so yeah, he was kind of my mentor, certainly in the hound hunting and in years later was my intro, I wrote the book “Life of the Greatest Guide”. My inside to the Lee brothers and Dale Lee was George had traded some hounds with them.

Robert McCurdy [00:06:14] I bring that up, but George was completely gone over hunting and fishing and the outdoors and so I could go, “You think I’m sick? What about this guy? Okay, you take me to the doctor. What’s with…?” And so he was a kind of a mentor. He got me into hound hunting and all that. But he was my savior, that’s for damn sure. Because now I’m not the only sicko in the family. There’s cousin George.

Robert McCurdy [00:06:45] And we got so close, maybe even closer than he was with his sons. We just did everything together. Made a lot of travels. The hound thing. He’s the one that got me into the hounds. His hounds were real pretty Walker hounds, just worthless performers. But whatever. They’d run, we’d enjoy it, you know, even if it wasn’t what they were supposed to run, it was still okay.

Robert McCurdy [00:07:15] And so, George, yeah, later in life. But I’m telling you, by the age of 11, I had not had a mentor. I know who George was. We had visited him once down there when he was living in, I think in Covington, maybe Hammond. He lived both places. So I knew who he was and thought the world of him and heard stories of him. But I was already deeply gone into it. He just refined it a little bit, you know.

Robert McCurdy [00:07:46] But he was kind of I told him before he died that he was my mentor, that he meant more to me than any member of the family, including, you know, my parents and everything. And he was touched by it, you know.

Robert McCurdy [00:07:59] He wasn’t a perfect individual by any means. I didn’t, some of the racism and stuff didn’t rub off on me. And he did have a certain, he had been a true alligator poacher in Louisiana when they were protected. And he didn’t always have a high regard for the laws, but he was a hell of a hell of a sweet guy to me. And so there.

Lee Smith [00:08:28] What was your first involvement with conservation?

Robert McCurdy [00:08:37] I mean, you could pick little incidental things, but but let me let let’s not make this too long or make it something that isn’t…

Robert McCurdy [00:08:47] Really my first real involvement, and you got to give credit where credit is due. You know, I’ve thought about this and I’m all like, I like to say, “Hey, I’m a great guy. If you don’t know that, just ask me”, you know, “Or wait till I leave the room and then I’ll tell you.” I mean, I’m a great guy.

Robert McCurdy [00:09:07] I’ve done a lot of conservation, environmental protection work because it means a lot to me. But really, the first thing was I had the camera shop in the middle of Main Street on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, about 30 miles off the coast of the Cape there.

Robert McCurdy [00:09:28] And I did something quite amazing there, I would say. Of course, now the rest of the island’s ruined. So what does it matter? But you know who really should get the credit? Thinking back on it all is this guy Stan Kite, who, whether he was right or wrong or whatever, picked me as the one to have all this checkerboarded acreage.

Robert McCurdy [00:09:56] So the west end of Nantucket Island is called Madaket, Madaket. I’ve lived out there in the old life-saving, it was called the Humane House, built 1792.

Robert McCurdy [00:10:12] But a hurricane came through back in the ’50s and cut part of the West end off and put a pass of the ocean through there. And so it created an island that used to be the west end of Nantucket. And it became Esther’s Island. That’s what it came to be called.

Robert McCurdy [00:10:35] And I used to love to go out there kayaking and I’d put up a tent and I’d fish for stripers and bluefish and all that. And the birdwatching was good. And I just loved being out there, and away the hell from everybody. It was great. It was great.

Robert McCurdy [00:10:54] And there was not much left out there of what had been a little bit of population. Not much.

Robert McCurdy [00:11:04] But anyway, and this story could go all kind of directions. How I got to be good friends with Fred Rogers and Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. We became an odd couple.

Robert McCurdy [00:11:17] But it really let’s focus on Stan Kite. And that is that one day and I knew him. He was a customer at my camera shop and everything. And we got to be friends. But and he had a heart attack, which I think made him consider mortality and all that. But he had me come visit him out at his house, out on the West end, out in Madaket.

Robert McCurdy [00:11:45] And he went way back. His family was a historical family. And he surprised me by saying, “Listen, I own all these lots all over Esther’s Island, checkerboarded over the whole. Would you like to have them?”.

Robert McCurdy [00:12:05] “Yes, I love that place.” And it would give me, nobody could come and go, “What are you doing here?” “You don’t know it, but I actually own that land.” “Yes. Screw you.” I can’t say that. “Forget you.”

Robert McCurdy [00:12:20] I got. I saw infinite possibilities. And he said, “Well, here’s the deal. The titles are not very clear. But it controls the island, it’s checkerboarded over the whole island, these lots are.” And he said, “I know you love it. And so you’re in.”.

Robert McCurdy [00:12:38] And so I said, “Yes.”.

Robert McCurdy [00:12:40] And then through a story that shows you how devious I can be that we won’t go into, but I forced a an attorney and a selectman that was under grand jury investigation. I threatened him and forced him to clear all those titles. And it put me.

Robert McCurdy [00:12:57] And then another hurricane comes through and rejoins Esther’s Island with it. Now I’m the owner, the controller, of a lot of the west end of Nantucket. That is some powerful real estate, my friend.

Robert McCurdy [00:13:14] And the Board of Selectmen, those swine. Yeah, I’m saying that. Be sure you get it recorded. They decide they’re going to put in utilities and roads and all that, you know, to this beautiful long spit.

Robert McCurdy [00:13:30] And without going into it, it was a great battle. But in the last hour that it was legally possible and I had to go through the governor’s office and their DEA, which is not Drug Enforcement Agency, but Department of Environmental Action. Anyway.

Robert McCurdy [00:13:47] Long story. I got the land. I gave it all to the Audubon. And that gave them control and a seat at the table. And they had the power. They had all the data. They had stuff that I didn’t have.

Robert McCurdy [00:14:05] Now I gave up. Think of what that real estate would be worth today. And what could you do with that money? You know.

Robert McCurdy [00:14:12] But it meant so much to me. And, and the hatred that got put my way. You know. “Shit. We can’t take our dune buggies and our big beach buggies with our surf rods and all that out. You know, How dare you?” I went, “I’m a fisherman more than you are. What?”

Robert McCurdy [00:14:31] Anyway, that was a hell of a move to get that land in the hand of the Audubon Society and to protect the west end of Nantucket, which continues to this day.

Robert McCurdy [00:14:43] But like I say, if you go and look at the rest of Nantucket and what it became, what it used to be like and what it’s like now, I don’t know. What’s the value of it?

Robert McCurdy [00:14:55] But you ask about what was my really first significant conservation move. That was it. But let’s not forget Stan Kite, who’s the one that first put me in control of that land, you know? And I’ve thought about him plenty of times.

Robert McCurdy [00:15:14] So that was my first. I backed into it. You know, I was backed into it, but that was it. And a hell of a move. And it stands to this day. And Audubon still has it and still talks to people about staging areas and nesting areas and, “Hell, no, you’re not putting roads and utilities and all that.”

Robert McCurdy [00:15:38] Let me take a little sip here.

Robert McCurdy [00:15:39] Sure.

Robert McCurdy [00:15:40] Is that all right?

Lee Smith [00:15:41] Yep. Perfect.

Robert McCurdy [00:15:47] So, yeah, that was, you know, that preceded, you know, the Conservancy, Weigel. Weigel and I first became at least slightly acquainted was the Caddo story, you know, and that’s what the Conservancy would want to go back to probably. But I would like to go back to Stan Kite and Esther’ Island. And we can talk about Caddo. You know, whatever you want to talk about.

Lee Smith [00:16:19] What was your first interaction with the Nature Conservancy?

Robert McCurdy [00:16:21] The Nature Conservancy? That was it. So I got hold of a piece of land out on Caddo Lake on Jenkins Slough. That was ’79, I reckon. And even that’s a long story because I’d had a fishing camp down in Louisiana and I got pissed off over the death of an otter that I knew very closely and a slime ball taken land away from a family that had had it for generations. I leased my land that my camp was on for $24 a year. That was when the old family had it.

Robert McCurdy [00:17:05] Anyway, all my stories can grow into long stories.

Robert McCurdy [00:17:09] But eventually I ended up getting the land holding out at Caddo Lake, which I thought was such a dreamy, spooky, moody, eerie place. And then I expanded that. I took an old hayfield that we had had out in Burleson, south of Fort Worth that had been a big hayfield for us, and where we kept a bunch of hogs that the city made us move and one thing and another. And I traded.

Robert McCurdy [00:17:39] I ended up eventually getting a good chunk of acreage. It felt much bigger in those dense dense dense woods and the sloughs. God, that was, you talk about a country that will haunt you. That that’s a good word for Caddo. Possess you. It was really something. Boy, oh boy. And I think I ended up with, Weigel would probably help me remember, I think it was 800 and something acres, something like that.

Robert McCurdy [00:18:16] But, boy, that was crooked. That was a place I think a Texas game warden would tell you the scariest assignment you could get probably in those days back in the late ’70s, and who knows, previous. But there were, I’m sure, escaped convicts. You’d see guys with their face covered with bandanas and shit, not for health reasons. I mean, it was. And it was. I mean, it was. It could be dangerous. There was a lot of gunplay. A lot of fires started. A lot of everything.

Robert McCurdy [00:18:54] Anyway, I got that land and started getting to know some of the wild ones. Had my life threatened any number of times. Held people at gunpoint. One of the I think I don’t think I’ve done that a lot in my life. Even fired shots in people’s direction. I mean, it was, that was really something.

Robert McCurdy [00:19:16] And I defended that place against crooked Forestry Service, and they swore they’d kill me. A crooked County Commissioner, Lee McNeely. Gee, I shouldn’t have put that on tape. A guy that had crazy papers who’d go in front of a judge and go, “I’m crazy,” and would just kill everything.

Robert McCurdy [00:19:39] I defended that place a lot. And but in the end, at the end of the ’80s or, yeah, right at the end of the ’80s, I’m going to say about ’89 a little over-the-counter trading, but very small. Schneider Energy a little oil and gas drilling piece of… I’m trying to hold my language back here, but really, boy not a, a company that thought nothing of lying and all kind of stuff.

Robert McCurdy [00:20:26] They came out and started really tearing it up with just wells that the prospects weren’t even good. They were trying to make business. Business was down in the oil and gas community. They were trying to make work for employees and keep their investors attracted, all that kind of stuff. And they were doing a lot of damage and I fought them all I could. Even got a law firm to let me use their letterhead and all that.

[00:20:56] And but I was losing. And that that area really meant a lot to me and beyond my own land because I’d roam it in a canoe, you know. And so I was working at that time, working on protecting and cleaning up and protecting the Colorado River. And I was spending a lot of time at Stuart Henry’s law office where I got to know all the good environmental attorneys that came up through Stuart Henry’s office – I mean, Rick Lowerre certainly foremost amongst them. But you know, Tommy Mason, Mary Kelly, Bill Bunch, people that have gone on to be a somebody, all came through that office.

Robert McCurdy [00:21:44] And I was there a lot, always begging for free legal services. I never had enough money when I was director of the the Colorado, it was called the Clear Clean Colorado River Association, and I served years as their executive director.

Robert McCurdy [00:22:03] And that’s where I got to know, back then, David Braun, who was the director for the Nature Conservancy. He had been at Parks and Wildlife, and David also spent a lot of time at that time at Stuart’s. Everybody did. All the environmental law community hung out at Stuart Henry’s law office. What a guy. Stuart Henry, there’s a hero, the granddaddy rabbit of everybody.

Robert McCurdy [00:22:34] Anyway. And so I started trying to get David Braun, and he’ll tell you I’m telling the truth, interested in Caddo. And I couldn’t believe that the Nature Conservancy of Texas wasn’t interested in the only natural damn lake in the whole state. That confounded me. I don’t use that word a lot.

Robert McCurdy [00:22:59] And I finally annoyed and I’m telling the story true. And anybody that wants to amend or edit, feel free. I’m telling it to be the absolute truth. I finally bugged Braun enough that he, in a loud voice, told me he would give me three people for a day to investigate the possibility that they should take interest in. And I went, “That’s a gimme. I’ll blow their mind. Are you kidding me?”

Robert McCurdy [00:23:28] Which did happen. The three people that came.

Robert McCurdy [00:23:31] And the Conservancy got involved and I had the honor of drawing on a grease board, on a board with a grease pencil in the basement of a real estate office in Marshall, Texas. I said, “Here’s boundaries y’all should go after. I can tell you how it fits together ecologically, but this is what you should do.”

Robert McCurdy [00:23:58] And boy, I had a hard time getting them involved. But once the Nature Conservancy got involved, and particularly Sean Hamilton. Give that guy a lot of credit. What a land trading … And he had been an evil guy. He had been a timber cruiser up in the Northwest. But what a great guy. We’ve talked since. I think he’s in Minnesota now.

Robert McCurdy [00:24:22] But I told them they would never be able to put together. It was roughly a 7500-acre area that I was talking about and I said, “This is what you should do ecologically, it all makes sense supporting this and that wildlife. But you’ll never get it.”

Robert McCurdy [00:24:45] They had it done in a year and a half, two years. They did all the trading and buying and all and they put it together. Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive.

Robert McCurdy [00:24:55] And of course, you always have whole lots of help and lots of funding. And some of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy got involved and all the Parks and Wildlife Department, I mean, it takes a lot of people, but it all got done. And we had the big celebration, I believe was in ’92.

Robert McCurdy [00:25:15] And I’m glad to say I’ve been back a few years ago. It’s now, Conservancy passed it on to Parks and Wildlife as a WMA, Wildlife Management Area managed by, tip of the hat to Vanessa Adams. And I spent a day going over all my old stomping grounds with her and Rick Lowerre, who worked for doing the federal thing.

Robert McCurdy [00:25:42] And that’s a whole other story. We didn’t even know each other were working on. He was working on one piece and me on another. And anyway, I think the world of Rick and Mary, of course.

Robert McCurdy [00:25:56] And so we spent a day tromping around with Vanessa and I said, “Isn’t it something, Vanessa, that I can look you right now and say, ‘you know what, I’m sorry for the giant salvinia occupying the water. That’s a horribly sad story, what’s happened with the giant salvinia?’ But the land, all the land that I knew so intimately.”.

Robert McCurdy [00:26:18] I said, “And my little shack that I painted the woodland murals on still stands.” They treat it as some kind of I don’t know. I don’t know how they treat it that need to be treat it that way. But I said, “Isn’t it something I can look you in the eye and tell you, ‘you know what? It may even look better than it did back in my days.”

Robert McCurdy [00:26:39] And so there’s a little bit of a happy story. Of course, what’s happening all around it. But, you know, that’s still a beautiful place, that WMA out there at Caddo Lake. And I donated all my land to that.

Robert McCurdy [00:26:59] And then they wanted some money to endow it, and that’s when Weigel had to write me the letter. And so they approached me about an endowment. Well, I didn’t have money back then. I mean, I don’t have any big, big money now, but I certainly got a lot more money after then. But back then I didn’t. I had land traded our old land and done all of this stuff. I didn’t have a lot. And they wanted an endowment.

Robert McCurdy [00:27:26] And I told them, “Don’t waste your time.” “Well, no, I’m supposed to.” “Yeah. I don’t care what you’re supposed to do. You’re wasting your time.” I gave them 100 bucks.

Robert McCurdy [00:27:33] And Weigel had to write me a letter, “Dear Mr. McCurdy, thank you for your generous endowment of $100 (in the space).” That was me and Weigel’s first involvement.

Robert McCurdy [00:27:46] Excuse me while I take a sip.

Robert McCurdy [00:27:49] All right. True story. All all true.

Jeff Weigel [00:27:53] That was 100% true.

Robert McCurdy [00:27:55] Thank you.

Lee Smith [00:27:57] Certified true.

Robert McCurdy [00:28:00] Thank you.

Jeff Weigel [00:28:01] Well told, Robert.

Robert McCurdy [00:28:03] Well, as usual, that could go, Caddo, you know, in my time there was ’79 to ’92 and, shoot, man, a lot happened out there. And that was still a wild and really a spooky, moody place to, you know, and I camped for quite a while out there. Just hell, sometimes I’d just turn over a beamy canoe and get under it on a pad and all like that, you know. Caddo was quite the place.

Robert McCurdy [00:28:44] But that’s where I was sure, I sure got impressed with how how the Nature Conservancy worked. They were, whoof, they were pros. They were pros.

Lee Smith [00:28:56] So how did you get involved in and what’s the story with Independence Creek? Let’s move there now.

Robert McCurdy [00:29:05] Sure.

Robert McCurdy [00:29:08] You know what a coincidental thing. Even though I’d had, of course, you know, all the relationships with the Nature Conservancy and continued to be impressed by them. You know, I’m one of the few people I think, well, that’s probably not true. But I mean, I read every issue of their publication cover to cover. I also follow their state financial records. I’ll bet I’m one of the few that’s not employed by them that looks over and goes, “What kind of shell game is this?” Anyway, that’s off to the side.

Robert McCurdy [00:29:48] So, you know, I followed them, but we had kind of, we had not stayed connected after, we did for a little while after Caddo and everything, but then, you know, we drifted apart. I drift apart from everybody.

Robert McCurdy [00:30:07] But I had done a number of other things, had many more adventures and all that since those days. And I got to thinking, it was probably, so not that many years had passed, but it was probably late ’90s, right at the end of the 90s, something like that. I’d kind of had involvement in a lot of different parts of Texas, but not really.

Robert McCurdy [00:30:36] And I’d spent, I’d had some wonderful times in my childhood. My father was a wildcatter geologist and he was always disappointed that I didn’t have more interest in geology, but I’d be out chasing snakes and lizards and all that and working for the Museum of Natural History – what a great program that was in Fort Worth. And that could be a whole ‘nother story. A lot of people came through that, that program, the Museum of Natural History had for kids that were geeky outdoor kids or whatever.

Robert McCurdy [00:31:16] Like I say, my stories could go all over the place.

Robert McCurdy [00:31:19] But anyway, so I started just taking trips out to, you know, the Marfa area. This was late ’90s, Marfa, and you’d started hearing more about Marfa, you know, becoming something of an art mecca and all that kind of thing, you know. We can go into the artists and all that, but you know what I’m talking about.

Robert McCurdy [00:31:47] But I was interested in the land and, you know, getting out. I just, it was a part of the state area, not that I confine myself to state lines, but it was just, you know, I got family in North Texas. I’d spent a lot of time in East Texas, South Texas, central Texas. And man, I just hadn’t been out there, though I’d been I’d been out there visiting, hunting, doing different things at one time or another, and I’d travelled, driven around it so much and always like, “God, I wonder what that’s like back in there, I wonder…”

Robert McCurdy [00:32:28] And so, I just started going out and wandering, you know, and looking around and I was thinking. And I had gotten a little more money and all that. That certainly ties into it. And I was thinking and Caddo was gone, you know, I mean, I was glad to donate my land, but, you know, I lost my hang, my my private place there. And I had plenty of people invite me to use theirs. But anyway, all that goes into it.

Robert McCurdy [00:33:07] I started looking around. And I was having an idea that, you know, maybe get some place out there, you know, maybe. And land was cheap compared to many other areas.

Robert McCurdy [00:33:23] And so I started looking around. And I had seen in the Nature Conservancy publication where they would list sometimes conservation properties and stuff on the market. Either they were looking for a partner or they would be looking for a conservation buyer where the Conservancy would, you know, put a lot of easement restrictions in place and then find a buyer who was interested in getting it. And I’d seen this place – way beyond my means – but I had, going through the pages of the. This is, you said, how did it happen? This is really how it happened.

Robert McCurdy [00:34:09] I saw a mention of what, you know, now we know as being one half, one part, it’s not exactly a half, but, you know, call it the eastern side of what’s now Independence Creek Preserve, the Oasis ranch it had gone by. I like that name. What is it but an oasis out there with all the springs you know? You’ve been. And I saw that. But out of my league, you know, I forget -millions of bucks.

Robert McCurdy [00:34:46] And and so but but I remembered it. And so then this musician friend of mine in Austin, he knows I’m out looking around and he brings all these listings. He had taken some interest in it too because he knows if I’ve got a place, he’s going to be invited, right?

Robert McCurdy [00:35:08] And he brings over this whole, you know, pad of listings he’s come up with for far west Texas. And I’m going through, and damn if this same place pops up again. But some of the descriptions – it had exotic game. It was listed as being near Midland, which you’ve been there, it’s not near Midland. Well, I mean, Austin’s near Midland too, but we don’t think of it like that.

[00:35:40] But anyway, a lot of the stuff. But anyway, it pops up again and and the person to get in touch with was a guy that I we maybe knew of each other. I certainly knew of him. I don’t know how much he knew of me, but James King, you know. And so I just I talked to another guy, friend of James’. He went, “Give him a call.” And I went, “I don’t want to pretend like I’m a player where I’m not a player, but I am interested.”

Robert McCurdy [00:36:15] Just here, so I call up James King and I don’t pretend. I mean, you know, I try to be straightforward but I tell him, “Man, maybe I could pull together. I would love to.” And so he says, “Come out”, you know. And I had a couple of friends came with me and Weigel was there for that very… That was March of 2001, I believe. Jeff, amend or edit.

Robert McCurdy [00:36:48] And so I just go out and, “Wow.” And of course, they had learned then that the Cannon Ranch, on the other side, it’s now, it’s on the market and everything, and they want to do that. And so we went touring all around. You know, I spent a couple of days, had a blast. It just, and oh, my gosh, what’s not to love, you know?

Robert McCurdy [00:37:20] But and we were up at we now call it “The Lookout”, up on the east side of North Canyon, and where you’ve got, where there’s a little building up there built by the Roden family. And you can look over all of the Independence Creek valley. You’ve probably been up to that Lookout.

Robert McCurdy [00:37:44] And we stood up there talking about what could be and all that. And I said, again, I’m trying to be accurate and tell the truth. And I said, and James and Jeff let me know that, well, they maybe had a conservation buyer. As I recall, it was a guy, a South African guy from San Antonio, a big liquor importer. That may or may not be accurate. Jeff would be better qualified there. But that’s what I remember.

Robert McCurdy [00:38:21] And I said, “Oh, man, no, no, this is a more special place. This is this is big stuff, you know?” And we talked about the great potential of it and all that. And so I said, “Listen. I tell you what, I would…” And I had I had just taken over the remnants, people hear oil business, they’re going to get the wrong idea. But I had taken over the remnants of what had been left of my father’s operation, which I saw the big rise and the big fall. And he’d go deep in debt and we lost our whole house and all that.

Robert McCurdy [00:38:59] But there were still some little piss-ant leases and there was a very great guy, Ellie Bearden, had been running everything. I had been as irresponsible as I could possibly be and stayed and I got sucked into. That’s a whole ‘nother story.

Robert McCurdy [00:39:17] But eventually I ended up taking over as president of this partnership that was remains of a business he had started. That all, this figures in, believe it or not.

Robert McCurdy [00:39:31] And so at that time, so anyway, so here’s me and James King, Jeff Weigel, and two of my friends, Doug and Craig, were there at the Lookout. And I’m probably talking bigger than.

Robert McCurdy [00:39:43] But, you know, I said, “Listen. Why don’t you all buy the Oasis side. You all come up with that money.” Because they’re the Nature Conservancy. They’re big time. And I said, “Man, I will, let me see what I can put together. And maybe I could come up with the money to get the Cannon side. And we’d put it together and all manage as one, you know? That would be it.”

Robert McCurdy [00:40:10] And of course, they’re not nice guys. And they, you know, they’re going, “Why don’t you try to swing the Oasis side, and we’ll like, you know, see about the Cannon.” I’m like, “Wait a minute. Me, you. No wrong way about it.” That’s the way the talk went. None of it seemed very likely, I got to say.

Robert McCurdy [00:40:37] But I had just taken over, and, you know, these stories could go on and on. But a very early move I made as president of that partnership, I came up with this incredible idea of how to trade, of how to execute a note, to borrow a lot of money, and to cancel out a bunch of T-bills, Treasury bills, that they had as a safe investment for the partnership, you know, which I had a pretty high interest in, that I inherited through.

Robert McCurdy [00:41:19] And I secured everything with my interest, with my shares, and said, “I’m going to give you a higher yield. Not by much, but I can beat T-bill interest and I’m going to borrow this money. It took me forever to pay it back because I didn’t have big income. But it was a very.

Robert McCurdy [00:41:44] And then the kind of negotiations I had with the Conservancy about where they made a personal loan with me, that was all. It, we went through incredible scheming. It really never seemed possible till we got near the end. But it involved so many things. We don’t have the time here to go into it. Some of it it wouldn’t be wise to go into, but there’s a hint of what went into it. There’s a slight bit of coincidence to it, but I was thinking on land, never dreamed about anything like that.

Robert McCurdy [00:42:33] And then con artists named Jeff Weigel and James King came into the picture. And I guess now you say the rest is history. But that doesn’t begin to, that doesn’t do it justice. But there’s a hint.

Lee Smith [00:42:50] It got done.

Robert McCurdy [00:42:52] The deal got done. The deal got done. Amazing. Amazing.

Lee Smith [00:42:59] And now what is it?

Robert McCurdy [00:43:00] And now what is it? It’s Independence Creek Preserve. And, you know, the Conservancy had already had a toehold out there. They had easement property that they had paid a lot of money. I can even mention the figure, but I’ll leave that for Jeff. But they had paid a lot of money to the Chandler family to get easements where the Independence Creek goes into the Pecos and land around there. I think only around 713, 711 acres. Again, the Conservancy can feel free to amend this, but a small easement. And then they had gotten hold of a little deeded property that that’s a whole nother story, not to go into. Conservancy could do a better job.

Robert McCurdy [00:43:52] But all of a sudden, wow, we put the Cannon and the Oasis ranches together and made, if you add everything, all added up, around 20,000-acre preserve called Independence Creek Preserve, which is what it is today.

Robert McCurdy [00:44:12] And we’ve done work. Mainly I have done work on the infrastructure and we now have, you know, a lodge, an extension and a lake house. And I have a little ranch house and.

Lee Smith [00:44:28] But it doesn’t exist, it’s not like an island. How does this piece of property fit into the Pecos River and the ecosystem?

Robert McCurdy [00:44:39] Yeah, I think Parks and Wildlife, when they were interviewed, when we first put the deal together, they said it’s real simple, you know, for that part of the country, Independence Creek is the most important tributary.

Robert McCurdy [00:44:53] You know, I’m sure the hydrology since we got the study done in the first few years of the preserve, it may have changed a little bit. But Independence Creek at the confluence with the Pecos River, and you don’t see it all because some of it, some of that riparian corridor, it has water running just under the gravel and the rock. If you follow the course of that creek, you’ll see how it comes above the rock and down into it and up.

Robert McCurdy [00:45:25] But nevertheless, at that confluence with the Pecos River, it enlarges the flow of the Pecos River by near 50%. So and that is a really clean spring-fed flow coming from all of that massive spring source. One cluster of them, Caroline, or T5 springs we have right near. We have a pavilion there and it’s on the preserve. But there are other little seep springs coming from all over.

Robert McCurdy [00:46:07] And so the contribution of that ridiculously – in limnology you’d call it oligotrophic – that ridiculously clean water that’s come from 1000 feet deep up through the limestone and gushes out in those springs – what a thing? Artesian springs existing today! Most are gone. Read Gunnar Brune’s “Springs of Texas” for a heartbreak.

Robert McCurdy [00:46:35] But anyway, that confluence where Independence Creek hits the Pecos River really changes the nature of the Pecos, you know? And so it really dilutes the total suspended solids and th dissolved solids. It improves the the the health of that river, if you will.

Robert McCurdy [00:47:00] Not that the Pecos above there, which is carrying a hell of a sediment load from both natural erosion but from a lot of oil fields.

Robert McCurdy [00:47:12] I hadn’t operated some there out in that part of the world. I, you know, I was a, I had to be an oil field operator and some of it was right on Live Oak Draw. And I like to think I think I cleaned up a lot of operations out there, just little pissant wells. But anyway, it is funny that I was a oil and gas operator out in West Texas right near where we are now.

Robert McCurdy [00:47:45] But Independence Creek really does improve the water quality of the Pecos tremendously. And from that confluence on down to where it goes and Amistad backs up into the lower Pecos, which is a beautiful stretch to canoe and somewhat dangerous. It makes that a glorious, you know, I’m probably ruining it right here, but a lot of people don’t know what a beautiful, beautiful, wild stretch of river from that confluence down to Amistad, Highway 90. It’s really something.

Robert McCurdy [00:48:32] So you could say protecting it was, had incredible importance that way, before you get into all the flora and fauna of the preserve, which you’re right, it’s not an island. I mean, 20,000 acres is a nice chunk of land, but that ain’t going to save the world, you know. We can prove that today.

Robert McCurdy [00:48:55] But protecting that water, as much as you can… Now, big straws can still go down into that deep aquifer. And there is no question today, we don’t like to think about it or talk about it, but those spring flows are diminished. We used to think they would never. But they have.

Robert McCurdy [00:49:18] They’re still, you know, you struggle for the right words. They are still, they still inspire, like awe and everything, to have that kind of spring flow there is really something. And being that we still had a lot of volume to the spring flow, even in the 2011 drought, which was a damn near outside history drought, you know, I mean, it was, 2011 was something like you just rarely see. Maybe we’re headed that way again. I don’t know. But, you know pretty amazing that those springs continued flowing through 2011 and the aftermath, 2012 and all that. Something to be said for that.

Robert McCurdy [00:50:15] But have they diminished? They have. They have. Anyway.

Lee Smith [00:50:20] Why was it important to you to have the hunting and fishing rights?

Robert McCurdy [00:50:26] It wasn’t just the hunting and fishing, Lee. I was, and that was more I had great lawyers, two of the more powerful ones – Bill Locke, Ben Vaughan, thank you forever, were doing it pro bono because they cared enough too. Shows you some great guys were at Graves, Dougherty, Hearon and Moody back then.

Robert McCurdy [00:50:49] Yeah, they were convincing me. My God, you’re sinking all the, all the money you have in life. You’re, you’re, you want all the control. So I didn’t just name hunting and fishing. God, I got the wind rights. I got the executive oil rights, oil and gas rights, grazing, water, everything I could name. It only lasts till I die and then I lose everything.

Robert McCurdy [00:51:14] But it gives me, if I want to be that kind of guy, which I hope the Conservancy will say, even though they have provoked me endlessly. I have been a great guy throughout. But it did give me a lot of strings to pull should I need to.

Robert McCurdy [00:51:32] It was my lawyers that went, “Man, you’re sinking everything into it. Get all the control you can get, you know?” I mean, it was more their idea.

Robert McCurdy [00:51:43] Now do I love to hunt and fish? Oh, my God, that’s my my life. I’m a conservationist, environmental defense guy, but I love hunting and fishing.

Robert McCurdy [00:51:55] Fly fishing, I mean, I had the Austin, I started the Austin Angler in downtown Austin. Fly fishing has been a lifelong magnet and possessor and leader. I mean, it’s been so much to me.

Robert McCurdy [00:52:17] And hunting and maybe not how … I don’t like most hunters. That’s going to be popular. Hell, I don’t like most fishers for that matter. There’s a whole lot of people I don’t like.

Robert McCurdy [00:52:27] But anyway, it is something very special to me and I don’t like it to be any kind of spectacle and all that. But I do have a very intimate relationship with hunting and fishing.

Lee Smith [00:52:44] Well, it allows you to participate in the environment.

Robert McCurdy [00:52:49] Indeed it does. But you could do those separately if you wanted. I mean, and I know plenty that have you know. There’s environmentalists that are shocked, you know, by any hunting. And there are hunters that have no use for a bunch of tree huggers. It can go both ways.

Lee Smith [00:53:15] And one thing … why do you encourage research and education out there?

Robert McCurdy [00:53:21] Man. You know, why do you love? Are there many people that read Stephen Jay Gould and, you know, all little hints that increase your wonder? I don’t know. That’s probably not exactly the right answer, but I want to know everything I can, everything.

Robert McCurdy [00:53:43] You know what gets me mad? You can edit this out. I don’t care because this isn’t going to be popular at all. But, you know, it’s been said God works in wondrous and mysterious ways. Most religions are working like hell to eliminate that and make up some bullshit story to take its place.

Robert McCurdy [00:54:02] If you really believe that, that there is a God, I would call it more a God force. The poet Dylan Thomas, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower. That’s good.

Robert McCurdy [00:54:16] All right. Create more wonder. Create more. The more you can know about it. Every little thing, right down to the molecular and atomic level. Oh, my God. It’s all, it is wondrous. It is wondrous.

Robert McCurdy [00:54:34] You know, when you tell somebody that there are more nonhuman cells walking around in what I call, I go, “Hi, I’m Robert.” That’s one of the biggest jokes in this community that I am. There’s more non-human cells right here than there are human. Luckily I outweigh them. And I’ve gotten to outweigh them a little more every day.

Robert McCurdy [00:54:55] But, you know, it’s a wondrous world. Stephen Jay Gould went, “It’s a bacterial world.” They own it. We borrow it.

Robert McCurdy [00:55:05] You know, humans are going to, this ain’t going to last long. I’m full of doom these days. Not gloom, but I’m full of doom.

Robert McCurdy [00:55:14] But you know the passing of the dinosaurs. You know who that wasn’t popular with? The dinosaurs. It wasn’t at all popular with them.

Robert McCurdy [00:55:22] We’re going to go that way. And people go, “Well, they were stupid.” Well, when we’ve been around 100 million years, let’s talk again. All right? You know.

Robert McCurdy [00:55:32] Anyway, it’s all such a wonder. And people that think it has some kind of purpose. It is not purpose. It’s a it is a force that goes every which way. And to put humans in some kind of a hierarchy, we do have this amazing ability to abstractly think that that is beyond any other animal. There are animals that can do abstract representation thinking. So humans, that’s our ability to change the world and everything.

Robert McCurdy [00:56:03] But it’s not like there is some direction or purpose. It’s a it’s a force that we’re just a small part of. And it’s all a wonder.

Robert McCurdy [00:56:12] And I love the sciences that bring more of it out to where we get to see it and think about it and try to understand. Well, you never will, but the more you can know about it, the more wonder there is.

Robert McCurdy [00:56:27] And you know, it’s why, for those of us who loved reading Gould and he died too young, but I just mentioned him among others. I could mention plenty of others. But Stephen Jay Gould did write over a thousand essays for Nature magazine. And he, it was some very entertaining things from the world of the natural sciences.

Robert McCurdy [00:56:51] So I don’t know, it may not have been the exact answer you were looking for when you said, “Why do you encourage, you know, the research and science and everything.” Man, to know more about the wonder and that sounds a little bit bullshitty and everything, a little stinky, but it’s not at all for me. It’s why I read biology textbooks. You know, I’m not much of a scholar, but it’s why I can’t get enough. I’m a bio groupie. It’s why I host bio camp out there every year.

Lee Smith [00:57:29] Tell me about that.

Robert McCurdy [00:57:31] Gathering a bunch of biologists and let me ask stupid questions. And that they think I’m a storyteller. It’s a good trade.

Robert McCurdy [00:57:39] Everything. Biology. The science of life. Well, shit. Let’s see. Now, that’s pretty good. I mean, life – science of it. Well, heck. No, that’s good.

Robert McCurdy [00:57:51] I don’t think I have to explain that. People need to explain to themselves why they’re not more interested in it, you know. How can you not want to know and enjoy more about the wonders of the damned all of life? You know, I don’t think that takes much. People need to talk to themselves about why they’re not more interested in it. All right. Good.

Robert McCurdy [00:58:19] That wasn’t at all what you were looking for, was it?

Lee Smith [00:58:22] Yes and no.

Robert McCurdy [00:58:23] Okay, let’s. Let’s bring it in. Ask me what the hell? Let me take a drink of water and ask me what the hell you were really trying to get at.

Lee Smith [00:58:35] Well, no, I mean generally, but I.

Robert McCurdy [00:58:38] I just love it. And that’s the truth. That’s, I’m not bullshitting you. If you go look at the chair that I claim is my chair in my living room. I’d like it to be me and my girlfriend. She has a house. I have a house. She likes her life, I think, away from me. Anyway.

Robert McCurdy [00:58:57] But you know the chair I sit in most often there, and if you look right in front of that chair, right now, if you could get there before me, when I’m getting ready to go back home. But if you get there before me and you tell me, what is the book most direct? You will see a giant textbook probably weighs 15 pounds that goes deeper into biology. I mean, it’ll serve, you know, post-graduate. It’s a I mean, incredible. And there it is.

Robert McCurdy [00:59:28] That’s what I read out of all the time. It’s great these days because I can’t remember everything. So I can go back and read the same chapter in another month or two. And it’s all new again, you know, because memories go.

Robert McCurdy [00:59:40] Anyway, I really do love it. And that really is my selfish interest. And, you know, years ago, when I was prettier and more popular, I made a speech at the annual banquet at the Conservancy. And I described, I said, “I have tried to find a moral imperative for conservation. I cannot. But I can tell you this. It is a supremely selfish act and it is a beautiful, selfish act.”

Robert McCurdy [01:00:12] Conservation, when you really get way down to it. I would like to find a moral mandate, something I cannot I cannot, you know. And something else I said when I gave that year, for I was popular one year, not as popular the next year. I blame part of that on Marcia Ball.

Robert McCurdy [01:00:31] But anyway, the first year I was really popular. And I said, “In conservation, let me name the fuel we run on. The name of that fuel is heartbreak.”.

Robert McCurdy [01:00:46] Why do I, why have I ever cared about conservation and environmental defense? It’s because I feel the loss so intimately of stuff that’s gone away. It takes stuff that got in me and made my spirit and everything. I feel lost. And I think we’re doomed today. I know that’s not a real hopeful message.

Robert McCurdy [01:01:07] But fight for what you care about, love what you do, because you’re going to suffer a lot of heartbreak. Heartbreaks can give you a crippling depression, but they can also be what drives you to do things.

Robert McCurdy [01:01:19] And so that’s one of the things that, you know, I really mean. And when you go real deep into it, like sit alone for a long time, sit and think and you’ll see that conservation, really, while I can’t find any moral or scientific, I can’t find any kind of mandate for it. I can discover that it is a deeply selfish act.

Robert McCurdy [01:01:51] That’s what I come down to in philosophy. And that’ll explain a whole lot.

Robert McCurdy [01:01:56] Is that any good? Yeah. Yeah.

Robert McCurdy [01:01:59] I remember our tag line was “stay tuned”. And we were out and I was showing you the beaver slough, where the beaver…

Robert McCurdy [01:02:07] So and not only have we suffered extreme drought, back in the end of July 2004, we suffered. Suffered? We experienced. I suffered because how it altered Independence Creek. And I wish I could get the Nature Conservancy to join me to do restoration back to the damn near Garden of Eden paradise that Independence Creek used to be. I still intimately feel that heartbreak over … I got robbed.

Robert McCurdy [01:02:46] But nevertheless, you came out and we had had the end of July of 2004, call it a thousand-year flood. You know that has less significance these days. But we had had that. And there’s always some wonder, you know, some people say act of God, I say brought on by overgrazing in 1880 and sheet erosion. We won’t go into that.

Robert McCurdy [01:03:16] But anyway, but when that does happen, when it is some god huge natural force, don’t get frozen in time. Look what happens after it. Things are going to change. You know, the great Chief Sitting Bull said, “Snow melts.” That was very stoic of him to watch his people’s demise and make that statement.

Robert McCurdy [01:03:44] But anyway, you know, I was devastated. But nevertheless, not too long before you came out for a visit, one day I was wandering the creek and I said, “You know, I haven’t gone back up in there in a while where our major spring flow comes down into the creek.”

Robert McCurdy [01:04:08] I went there and sunk down in muck one day and thought, shit, I could die here. And it’s funny how I didn’t go back for a little while. But I was like, I need to go up there and look around and see how the spring flow is coming down, where there’s already live water in the creek from some seep springs up above. But the major contribution is our cluster of springs that comes in.

Robert McCurdy [01:04:33] So I just I was walking down Independence Creek and thought, I’m going to go through the brush and get back up in there and see what our unified spring flow is doing up. I could see where it came down the creek, but to see because it does some fascinating things.

Robert McCurdy [01:04:51] And Lee, I went up in there. I had to really go through the brush. And when I say jaw-dropping, I mean physically. I probably stood there like, you know, luckily there was nobody there to see me because I was a great-looking guy at the time. If I didn’t go, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:05:12] The beaver. Very few beaver. They had lost their habitat in the scoured creek way. And I thought, “Well, they’re gone. They’re gone. Who knows, you know?”

Robert McCurdy [01:05:26] A very low number of beaver had gone up into that spring flow, which is not part of a big drainage where you get flash flooding. And they had gone up in there and, you know, they’re beaver. They know these things.

Robert McCurdy [01:05:44] And across that spring flow, they and I, this is all going to be the absolute truth. I know I say some far-out things. It’s important to me to be as strictly honest as I can.

Robert McCurdy [01:05:59] Those beaver, out of sticks, rocks that they have to cradle in their front arms and shove along and mud and grass and all that.

Robert McCurdy [01:06:10] So the big flood came the end of July, 2004. In October of 2004, which is when I clawed my way through the brush, it was pretty early October, clawed my way through there and went.

Robert McCurdy [01:06:28] Those beaver had built a single continuous dam over 500 feet long. Just a few beaver. Not a large number. Had built a dam and backed our spring flow water up to make a slough that you later saw that I was really eager to take you to and go, “Look at this. Look what the beaver did.” You know?

Robert McCurdy [01:06:59] That was my first stumbling into it. I just went up and of course then there was still a lot of brush and trees because the water hadn’t been there long enough to kill off and to make that long slough.

Robert McCurdy [01:07:12] When I showed it to you, there were still some trees coming up and maybe dead mesquite going gray and stuff, but you could still see how it was kind of a fresh, a fairly new slough.

Robert McCurdy [01:07:25] And that’s why I say my tagline was, “Stay tuned, you know.”.

Robert McCurdy [01:07:31] And my God, that doesn’t make me a, you know, anybody able to. I can’t predict the future. People go, You seem to. Listen, I can’t predict the past. Okay? Don’t … Forget the future. All’s I could say was, “This is going to be something.” And wow, over the years what that has been.

Robert McCurdy [01:07:52] And it’s still there. But now the beaver have decided to we’re going to elevate it and make higher pools. Why? I don’t know. I’m not … they’re a beaver. I’m not.

Robert McCurdy [01:08:03] One year they decided to make all these little canals. Great work out there in the desert and they did it. And one year later they went, “Nah, maybe not.” Yeah. I don’t know.

Robert McCurdy [01:08:17] Beaver are, beaver are such architects. And, you know, I’ve drawn some flak. Not everybody likes beaver out there. Oh, well, they take down trees where trees are real precious. Beaver have been there. Thank you to David Hillis for defending me against my attackers.

Robert McCurdy [01:08:36] Well, let’s see. If you had running water and you had beaver. Huh. Wonder what’s going to happen and everything. Beaver go to running water and they build dams. And dams back up and build little ponds and everything that then silt in and make. And then the beaver build somewhere else. And then you got a new meadow there.

Robert McCurdy [01:09:02] Beavers are architects of so many things. We haven’t even enumerated, listed all the things that beavers can do. And you know, they’re not all… I don’t want to say that beaver the only miracle animal but boy, beaver are something. Beaver are really something. And out there in the desert. Wow! Desert beaver. Oh, my God. They’re great. Yeah.

Lee Smith [01:09:30] That was the singular thing that blew me away.

Robert McCurdy [01:09:32] I’m glad. It should have. I took you down there. Not everybody merits a visit to the. You merited a visit. I wanted to take you, and I was hoping like hell you would look at it and go, “Holy shit. Out here in the desert? They made…?”

Robert McCurdy [01:09:49] You know, and then they inspired me to build all the wetlands below the reservoirs and didn’t get much, although I did get resistance from the Conservancy. But I did all that. I jumped on the bulldozer. I’m not a great operator. But anyway. And eventually the Conservancy sure got a lot of credit for the visit from that tundra swan. That never would have been there had I not done the wetland work.

Robert McCurdy [01:10:18] And of course the beaver had like and now I try to build little things that will give the beaver envy and they’ll go, “Oh, no, we can do better than that.” Then we trade back and forth. You know, they’re better than I am. They can do a better job. But they make wetlands. I make wetlands. You know? It’s all right.

Lee Smith [01:10:37] A tundra swan?

Robert McCurdy [01:10:40] Well documented, until the Conservancy employee ran it off. But it was well documented and lit up the internet. We had a true native migratory tundra swan come into the wetlands that, oh, I remember, I built over great resistance, but I won out.

Robert McCurdy [01:11:03] Anyway. Yeah. A tundra swan. Isn’t that something? A tundra swan migrated down and spent time. Would have spent longer there if we had kept our distance a little better.

Lee Smith [01:11:15] And that connects this 20,000-acre little plot to the Arctic.

Robert McCurdy [01:11:24] Oh, I mean, you know, here you got into history because tundra swan, you only have to go back to the early 1900s to see what native swans, tundra swans, not the, not the mute swan that was brought here to look at on Park Lakes and all that. And of course we do have, you know, the trumpeter, whistler, closely related, you know, but I’m talking about the tundra swans that used to… There was the eastern part of the continent migration. There were limits. They were a bird you hunted, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:12:04] And then there was the western side where they came down. And at one time, some made it down as far as Mexico, you know, and they were true migratory birds. Every year great numbers of them.

Robert McCurdy [01:12:16] But of course, shit, that’s been over quite a long time. But yep, we got a native tundra swan to come into my wetlands. But the beaver did it first, you know. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert McCurdy [01:12:33] I know. I know what’s next. Prairie dogs? Yeah. You know, isn’t it? That’s what you want?

Lee Smith [01:12:39] Yeah.

Robert McCurdy [01:12:40] Look, my interest in prairie dogs? I’ve eaten prairie dogs. I’ve killed them, okay? I’m not a prairie dog hugger, but I’m very interested in their eco function. We will never have them in a large enough community there at Independence Creek to where they really perform their everything in their eco function, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:13:08] They, I would rank them up there with bison and fire as being architects of our native prairie. And they have, they are really a, you know, umbrella species. There’s a lot of names you could give them.

Robert McCurdy [01:13:32] Now, I brought them in to the preserve. I am that guy that brought the pesky rodents to. But historically, they existed in that part of the world. I’m just returning. When I do these prairie dog introductions, I say they are reintroductions. I have never put a prairie dog where it did not historically occur. I’ve never done that.

Robert McCurdy [01:14:01] I have given my blessing to a few projects because… And why do we have them there at the preserve? Although they do do some good.

Robert McCurdy [01:14:12] A lot of this stuff, I mean, we can talk about different relationships between them and certain birds, between them and certain predators and all that, but they’re never going to reach a size in that colony to perform all of their true functions.

Robert McCurdy [01:14:29] But it gives me a chance to talk about them. Having them there, people find them. Some people say they’re cute. I say they’re cute and tasty. They’re very mild. They’re a women’s animal. That’ll go over big. Some women do like strong meat, but there’s a lot of women that don’t. Anyway, they’re very mild if you don’t let the fat go rancid.

Robert McCurdy [01:14:54] But a lot of people find them really entertaining. I do. I love looking out my picture glass window at the ranch house. What a seat I have to watching all that great behavior. I get to watch the babies pop up each year. It just happened. It’s very amazing to bear witness to the life that goes on in a prairie dog town while I kick back on the couch, you know, and have a martini and go, “Yeah, hell, yeah.” You know, And that’s just daylight. Two martinis when it gets dark, the prairie dogs are gone. You got to step it up, you know?

Robert McCurdy [01:15:32] Anyway, they’re never going to have eco function. But it does give me a chance to talk about a lot, just how big a role, I’m not kidding when I say I rank them up there with… Now, they weren’t in the tallgrass prairies, you know, until we got cows that took the tallgrass prairie down and then the prairie dogs could move in.

Robert McCurdy [01:15:57] Most people have it backwards. Oh, the prairie dogs are such a threat, you know, to the grasses that cows could be consuming. Prairie dogs wouldn’t have expanded as much as they did were it not for cows and bison helped them, too, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:16:11] But anyway, the prairie dogs, why they’re out there. They have some little eco function, but they’re mainly there because it gives me a chance to talk about where they do play their full eco function.

Robert McCurdy [01:16:27] And I’m not kidding. It’s up there, up there with fire and bison as as being prairie dogs are architects of our prairies, which we now have such a small percentage of them left. But they were very important. They played a hell of a role. And so we have them out there to let me, give me a foot in the door of talking to people, “Hey, I’ll bet you’d like to talk about prairie dogs.” Most people, not really. But, you know, there they are. And I go, “Yeah, look at that. Well, let me tell you something about them.” And I get five minutes or so.

Lee Smith [01:17:09] So we talk a lot about daytime. Tell me about nighttime, about looking up.

Robert McCurdy [01:17:17] Yeah. The stars. Yeah, I saw that. You did let me know that would be a question.

Robert McCurdy [01:17:23] Yeah, it really. And how many people have come? Of course, I love the night skies because I’m an old guy. And so what night skies in a lot of places looked to me like as a kid no longer exist. You know, you don’t notice sometimes, the changes are kind of gradual and the loss, you may not feel it. What can I say? I’m a sensitive guy. I know that the night skies I looked at as a kid what they look like.

Robert McCurdy [01:17:59] I mean, just a little bit outside of Fort Worth, you know, out where Burleson is now, you know, which now it’s all built up. I used to go out there and shoot jackrabbits when we would mow the hay fields and be ready to rake and then bale and all that. And now the fields are opened up and jackrabbits just everywhere, you know. And we were bloodlusty, unguided kids. Didn’t know what the hell we were doing. But, man, you know, I’m atoning for some of my sins. Maybe. But, you know, jeez, we did that.

Robert McCurdy [01:18:35] And when you looked at that night sky back then, you really were under that starry canopy. And you know it was. And you don’t notice. It’s gone away.

Robert McCurdy [01:18:46] And when you’re out there at Independence Creek Preserve now when we’re having smoke or dust storms or something, yeah, it’s not going to be. Or when you have a really bright full moon that’s going to, you know, ease into it. Moon sure is beautiful.

Robert McCurdy [01:19:01] But go out there on a winter night when you’ve got a new moon and go there on a winter night. And tell me if you’re not. I’ve already used confounded … flabbergasted. I’m searching for words that I don’t use a lot. No, it’ll, it’ll knock you out. You’ve never seen such a bright Milky Way and everything. And hell, you can get used to it.

Robert McCurdy [01:19:31] And then, of course, you go back to being around the city and, ah, shit, it’s gone. But it is something.

Robert McCurdy [01:19:37] There’s a reason the McDonald Observatory is way the hell out there. You know, And so Independence Creek, we got to be the next best dark spot.

Robert McCurdy [01:19:47] Remember years ago? Hell, it was in the early 2000s. A map, it was pretty popular. It was a nighttime map of the continental US by light presence. And boy, did I like looking at that map and contemplating what a damn dark spot we were at Independence Creek. There weren’t nothing. There were no lights, but there were stars and they were really something. And you get kind of kind of used to it, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:20:14] Out where I live at Hills Prairie, you know, I’m between Bastrop and Smithville and I don’t have a neighbor for a mile. And that’s probably what they say, “Hell, he’s at least a mile away.” But anyway.

Robert McCurdy [01:20:28] But it doesn’t begin to, it’s too much, you know, ambient light from other sources. That just doesn’t get it.

Robert McCurdy [01:20:38] It’s something pretty special out there. And it’s impressed, you don’t have to take that from me. A lot of people have come out there and they do that face. You know, there’s like, “God.” You did. Yeah. Good. You should.

Robert McCurdy [01:20:52] And remember, we used to have that all over the damn place. Now it’s gone. I’m telling you, all the good shit going away. I shouldn’t say shit, but anyway, we’re losing it. It’s all doomed. But then it’ll be over and the bacteria’ll be all happy again. Rulers. Anyway.

Lee Smith [01:21:14] Yeah. I went out, took a piss. I looked up, and didn’t move for two hours.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:20] Are we done here?

Lee Smith [01:21:22] Not yet.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:23] Not yet.

Lee Smith [01:21:24] Not yet.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:24] This is your day. My dog is left at home, but. Yeah. No, I’m still good. This day is devoted. As long as.

Lee Smith [01:21:35] We got about ten minutes.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:37] No. I was going to say an hour, just for traffic reasons, you know? 71 these days.

Lee Smith [01:21:44] I got another person coming in at 3.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:45] Good, good. What a guarantee. Three. I’m out of here.

Lee Smith [01:21:48] Yeah, we just got it.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:49] Super. Go pee, man.

Lee Smith [01:21:51] You kind of covered this in different ways.

Robert McCurdy [01:21:53] Yeah. Tell me what you want to cover in ten minutes, because that’s not much time.

Lee Smith [01:21:58] What? How does that area that. That everything we talk about, the wide expanse, the the night sky, how does that impact your sense of self?

Robert McCurdy [01:22:12] Before we record it, let me just tell you that when the Covid really took off, I had done that, that Tall Tales of Texas conservation show. And, you know, I was pretty popular and everything. That was that was the last day of February, February 28th. And you were just hearing Covid. New York was taking off. You know, this was February of 2020, 2020, I guess. Yeah.

Robert McCurdy [01:22:45] And so, you know and man, you know, what a pleasure to be popular. People rush the stage. Women were getting really close. I mean, my girlfriend was in the audience, but I was thinking sex on stage was a possibility, but I got all rubbed on and embraced and all that. It felt good.

Robert McCurdy [01:23:09] But Covid is like just and three days after that show, shit, I got sick and I went, “Well, here I am, the gopher in the gold mine”, you know. I know they say canary in the coal mine, but anyway, and but I didn’t have it.

Robert McCurdy [01:23:28] But I went, “Screw this.” I tried a few days of going around Bastrop with a mask that said, “Think positive.” It was supposed to be educational humor. You know, like, well, you got to think positive. Oooh, well, now you don’t want to be positive. I mean, see.

Robert McCurdy [01:23:45] But I was one of like two people that had a mask on in Bastrop. Used to when I worked on the river, they liked me a lot.

Robert McCurdy [01:23:53] Anyway, I just went, man, and I went out and from March to July I sat out. The preserve was shut down to the public for liability reasons.

Robert McCurdy [01:24:05] So when you ask what did it mean to me, what it meant to me was this is I’m the luckiest damn guy in the world that I can be out here and be absorbed into this. You know, look at the age. It strikes you so obvious because you got all those cut canyons and so you’re looking at vast amounts of time, just sitting there staring at you.

Robert McCurdy [01:24:30] And so you start disappearing and and you you really start becoming like a part of this much larger, much older. You know, you you become infinitesimal in this thing of of infinity, you know, I mean, that’s what it’s like and that’s the best of it for me.

Robert McCurdy [01:24:56] It’s a very selfish thing. Again, I get a lot of congratulations for all that I put into making the preserve. You know, me and James King. I’m saying this with Weigel probably taking a nap. But, you know, we really put that deal together. I mean, lots of people, of course, had to be involved. But we were the bold souls that had these crazy ideas and put together. Just it’ll never be done again, working that kind of deal, never again.

Robert McCurdy [01:25:27] And we put so, you know, people go, “Man, thank you for all that you did in making the lodge and doing all that, you know?” And I go, “Oh, yeah, just ask me. I’m a great guy.”

Robert McCurdy [01:25:38] But I remind them who one of the big guys to benefit, who is one of the greater recipients of that benefit. It’s me. And boy, oh boy, you know, what a what a thing. And especially when I can go out there and have it to myself like I did there for months on end. And it’s a it’s a selfish thing. I’m not magnanimous.

Robert McCurdy [01:26:13] I think once you die, one of the comforts of death is you don’t have to think about shit a whole lot, you know? You don’t have to worry about, “Well, now, God, I’ve never should have done it.” You know, that’s. Other people can do that. You die. And it’s. You’ve already practiced. When you, people, what do you think death is?

Robert McCurdy [01:26:31] Is. Is. This isn’t rolling? Oh, it is rolling?

Lee Smith [01:26:35] Yeah.

Robert McCurdy [01:26:36] I didn’t mean for today. I really didn’t mean shit. All right, well, it’s rolling, then.

Robert McCurdy [01:26:42] Is there life after death? Yes. Where were you a year before you were born? Well, in a similar place to a year after you die. You are living life. Is there life after death? You can prove it. We’re living it. You better make the most of it.

Robert McCurdy [01:26:57] But I tell you, after you die, you don’t look for golden hearts and wear a white robe. You’re dead. It’s over. And man, you practice for it every time you go into a deep sleep. That’s what it is.

Robert McCurdy [01:27:10] So what this all “after I’m gone”, am I going to enjoy what this could mean to? Hell, no. Hell, no. I don’t have to think about anything, all right? Thank goodness. Man, go back, make some good dust, you know?

Robert McCurdy [01:27:26] No, it’s selfish. I do it, and other people get to enjoy it. So you better be glad I did this selfish thing. I didn’t know all that.

Robert McCurdy [01:27:36] I thought you were saying you had to pee and you were going to go pee, and we were going off of tape for a little while. Yeah, well, use what you want. Edit the rest.

Lee Smith [01:27:48] It’s a trick we have.

Robert McCurdy [01:27:48] Yeah, that’s a good trick. What else you want to know?

Lee Smith [01:27:52] Well, one thing that that strikes me, you know.

Robert McCurdy [01:27:54] Now I know we’re on tape. You’re not going to get any more of what you just got.

Lee Smith [01:28:00] One thing that strikes me about that, and I use that word actively, it’s a tactile environment.

Robert McCurdy [01:28:11] Oh, my gosh.

Lee Smith [01:28:12] Everything.

Robert McCurdy [01:28:14] Oh, man.

Lee Smith [01:28:15] Everything is different.

Robert McCurdy [01:28:15] Ah, You had on there smells. I mean, the creosote bush after a rain. I don’t know if it’s for everybody, but, oh, my God. The smell of creosote bush after especially a drought in the desert. And you get a big rain. Come on, man. And then the bloom, you know, that you get from the what’s one of the more popular names – purple sage – because that brings it out and everything. You know, the smells, the sights, the sounds.

Robert McCurdy [01:28:54] Gosh, why are the sounds so good out there? Because you approach silence so often out there and so sounds find, you know, a much better landscape to express themselves because it’s never silent. It approaches silence, you know, but it never is. But what a great soundscape for a sound to come to life in.

Robert McCurdy [01:29:21] And so we didn’t cover a lot of stuff that you gave me some guidance on – various animals, birds, lizards, snakes – all so important to me. They’re inside me, you know. There it really is. And I would have had a hard time on so many. What your favorite?

Robert McCurdy [01:29:44] But I’ll tell you a snake that that I have to say, and it’s not uncommon. You know, we have some uncommon things that are very enjoyable. The Trans-Pecos copperhead is a very indigenous, small, small range, beautiful snake. Fewer and fewer every day.

Robert McCurdy [01:30:03] But you know, a snake I love because you look deep into their eyes, you want to see ancient wisdom. Man, the coachwhips we have out there, some of the locals call them red racers. Pink. The colors of some. We have we have variations. We have you know, they’re all but a whole bunch of them. The morph of them is that violent pink, red, scarlet. It looks unreal.

Robert McCurdy [01:30:35] And when they start traveling with about a quarter of the body elevated, looking, and they’re moving. And we have a great video of one taking out a rattlesnake and eating it doubled up. Corben got that video start to finish. But coachwhips, I love that snake.

[01:30:55] Harry Green, the great herpetologist that wrote “Snakes the Evolution of Mystery in Nature” and who comes to bio camp every year. Harry and I have shared how much we both love. And if you’re putting on a show for people, trying to catch one, they’re really good because they’re going to draw blood.

Robert McCurdy [01:31:15] First, they go for your eyes. But if you’re smart, you block that. But they’re going to. And then you throw the head back between your legs and pull it out where they just bite the back of your legs. But where they get you, anywhere exposed skin, you’re going to bleed. It looks real dramatic, you know, in front. It’s a great show.

Robert McCurdy [01:31:33] But that’s not mainly why I love them. I love watching them looking.

Robert McCurdy [01:31:37] And so, on birds, you know, you could name all kinds of things out there. We really focus on the zone-tailed hawks because they come and nest every year and they were a species of concern.

Robert McCurdy [01:31:53] And whenever you see something real rare, the Lewis’ woodpecker, we were on birdwatching maps one year because people wanted to come out. We had the Lewis’ woodpecker there. We have the acorn woodpecker. We get some, we’ve had roseate spoonbills, woodcock, you know, out there in the desert, the tundra swan. That was the biggest.

Robert McCurdy [01:32:15] But, you know, and you get great pleasure out of seeing that rare stuff. But do I enjoy one more than I? They’re all so every little one – blue gray gnatcatchers.

Robert McCurdy [01:32:32] Oops. Sorry.

Lee Smith [01:32:32] That wasn’t your fault.

Robert McCurdy [01:32:34] I know it wasn’t.

Lee Smith [01:32:36] You really have to watch that door.

Robert McCurdy [01:32:37] Yeah.

Jeff Weigel [01:32:38] My God, you’re still going. I’m sorry…

Robert McCurdy [01:32:40] Yeah, I knew you were napping.

Lee Smith [01:32:42] All right. We’re good.