White-tailed Deer

Lore & Background

Brazos Bend State Park opened in 1984 and is run by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The park occupies land bordering the Brazos River and includes low-lying areas left over from the river's previous meanderings. Pre-Columbian inhabitants included a series of Native American groups, most notably the Karankawa. The land passed through a variety of landowners' hands, resulting in some existing structures on the park grounds, including a brick cistern.

The park's current nature center is built into a structure previously utilized as a hunting cabin. Over the years, improvements were made to the various water bodies in the park for both recreational and flood management purposes. A low-elevation levied walkway surrounds the perimeter of some of the larger water bodies, such as Elm Lake and 40 Acre Lake. While significant modifications were made to the land within the park in the past, the current management strategy is to allow, in balance with the recreational elements of the park's mission, the maintenance of a natural landscape.

In 1984 the park was officially opened to the public, its lands having been donated to the state several years previously. In 2009, the park celebrated its 25th anniversary with a variety of special events and recognitions. Today the park is operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which manages state parks across Texas and oversees conservation, recreation, and public access programs within protected lands.

Reader's Guide

White-tailed deer are found in Brazos Bend State Park, a 4,897-acre state park along the Brazos River in unincorporated Fort Bend County, Texas. The park is run by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and opened in 1984. The park is open year-round, except for several weekends a year when it is closed for controlled hunts to manage the white-tailed deer population. The park contains recreational day-use areas including a dining hall, campground, and picnic areas, but its primary character is a natural park.

Its recreational opportunities revolve around enjoyment of its diverse ecosystems and species. The park also hosts educational programs put on by Texas Parks and Wildlife staff and the Brazos Bend State Park Volunteer Organization, including bird and photography hikes, alligator and snake education programs, and guided hikes of Creekfield Lake. The park is also home to the George Observatory, a satellite facility of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which contains three domed telescopes; the largest is the Gueymard Research Telescope, which has an aperture of 0.91 m (36 in).