Steve Killian, Cooper Lake Park Complex Manager loves it when visitors to the parks say “We didn’t know you offered all this!” There are actually two separate parks which welcome visitors, the South Sulphur Unit in Hopkins County and the Doctor’s Creek Unit in Delta County. Both offer RV and tent camping, screened shelters and lakeside cabins. You can rent a pavilion for a group event. There’s also hiking, kayaking, fishing, swimming, boating and more. Just ahead this Fall, a Music Festival is planned at the Doctor’s Creek Unit featuring The Birthright Blues Project and several other bands. Find out more by visiting Texas Parks and Wildlife website and Facebook pages for both the Cooper Lake sites.
Killian is always planning interesting programs for visitors.Coming soon are “Sunset Hike”, “Night Hike” and “Bats: the Most Misunderstood Mammal”. During a KSST Good Morning Show interview, he explained that even though bats may seem scary and creepy, they serve a very beneficial purpose. Bats are known as a “keystone species” because their removal would cause havoc in the environment. 70% of all bat species are insectivores and many are common to our area. For example, the common Big Brown Bat can devour between 2,000 and 6,000 insects per night, providing valuable control of mosquitoes as well as pests that affect our nation’s food crops. The work that bats do also makes them pollinators. The other 30% of bats in the world are fruit eaters, with none of these found in the United States. And of the three species of bats in the world which drink blood, none are found in the United States. Killian suggests that putting up bat houses on your property can increase their efficiency upon the insect population where you live. And about rabies, he mentioned that although rabies is often mentioned in connection with bats, but over the past 50 years, less than 50 cases of bat-borne rabies has been confirmed. Killian did stress that bats will rarely be seen during the daytime, and almost never on the ground. If you encounter a bat on the ground, do not touch it! Likely the grounded bat is not healthy, and their teeth are very sharp!! Killian will return to the KSST studio on Friday September 6,2019 at 8:15 am with more interesting information about the outdoors. Be listening!
There’s room to roam at Cooper Lake State Park, as there is at the 94 other State Parks around the state. Doctors Creek (on the north side of the lake) and South Sulphur (on the south side) offer tons of amenities. You can fish, picnic, swim, boat, water-ski, hike, bike, bird watch, study nature, stargaze, ride horses, geocache and camp. Call for information at 903-945-5256 or 903-395-3100.
