{"id":211763,"date":"2025-09-09T03:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T03:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/211763\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T03:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T03:10:08","slug":"fort-worth-zoo-plans-largest-horned-lizard-release-in-texas-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/211763\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth Zoo plans largest horned lizard release in Texas \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Inside a greenhouse-like structure at the edge of the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fortworthzoo.org\/new-at-the-zoo\/posts\/lets-talk-texas-horned-lizard-conservation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> Fort Worth Zoo is a nursery for hundreds of horned lizards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;re very charismatic,\u201d Fort Worth Zoo Assistant Director of Ectotherms Robyn Doege said. \u201cI mean, they have that cute face&#8230; for a reptile.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For two decades, the Fort Worth Zoo, along with other zoo partners, <a href=\"https:\/\/cse.tcu.edu\/stories\/posts\/horny-toad-project-leads-record-breaking-partnership-with-fort-worth-zoo.php\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/cse.tcu.edu\/stories\/posts\/horny-toad-project-leads-record-breaking-partnership-with-fort-worth-zoo.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TCU<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/tpwd.texas.gov\/huntwild\/wild\/species\/thlizard\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/tpwd.texas.gov\/huntwild\/wild\/species\/thlizard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Texas Parks and Wildlife<\/a>, has been working on a conservation program to bring back the threatened population of horned lizards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis used to be something so plentiful that even people here in downtown Fort Worth used to be able to see, but can&#8217;t see anymore,\u201d Doege said.<\/p>\n<p>In the last 20 years, the conservation project has released nearly 1,300 horned lizards into the wild. On Sept. 18, they\u2019ll have their biggest release to date.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ll have between 700 to 800 total getting released this year,\u201d Doege said. \u201cAnd from our releases that have been going on, we&#8217;re noticing our offspring are reproducing, and we&#8217;re finding new offspring at the site, so we know we&#8217;re heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doege said the team knows that because they keep a DNA database of each horned lizard. They are also identifiable by the unique spots on their bellies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s like your fingerprints,\u201d Doege said. \u201cSo we can look at the markings and match to who it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The release will take place in the Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area in North Central Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inside a greenhouse-like structure at the edge of the Fort Worth Zoo is a nursery for hundreds of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":211764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,40532,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-211763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fort-worth-zoo","11":"tag-fortworth","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115172148695571810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}