Nature
Bolivar Flats
These mudflats are an accident of engineering. The North Jetty built at the entrance to Galveston Bay around the turn of the twentieth century interrupted the sand moving along the coast, and sediment piled up behind it into a broad, shallow flat that did not exist before.
Nature
High Island and the Trans-Gulf Crossing
This low rise is a salt dome — the only high ground for miles, pushed up by the same buried Jurassic salt that traps oil along this coast — and the few acres of oak woodland growing on it are internationally famous among birders.
Nature
Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles
The rarest sea turtle in the world nests almost entirely on a single stretch of Mexican coast, and in 1985 the count of nesting females fell to a few hundred. Part of the recovery ran through Galveston: a federal laboratory here has raised Kemp's ridley hatchlings through their most vulnerable first year for decades, and turtles now nest on Texas beaches again in numbers that were unimaginable in…
Nature
The Oyster Reefs of Galveston Bay
The reefs under this bay are built by animals, like a coral reef, but out of eastern oysters cementing themselves to the shells of previous generations. They are the structural habitat of the bay — crabs, shrimp and small fish shelter in them, and a single adult oyster filters something like 50 gallons of water a day.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
