The October Chapter Meeting of Texas Master Naturalist, Hill Country Chapter was a Hybrid Meeting, with some members attending in person at the UGRA Building in Kerrville, Texas and others logging on at home to Zoom and Social Media. The meeting took place on October 25, 2021 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm and this video is the recording that was broadcast directly to the Chapter's facebook page as a live feed.

The speakers for the AT that followed the Chapter Business Meeting were Robin W. Doughty and Matt Warnock Turner.

Robin W. Doughty, a Yorkshire-born Geographer, who received his PhD from University of California Berkeley, has been on the UT faculty for more than 40 years. Robin has a longstanding professional and personal interest in wild animals, environmental change, and conservation. He has authored over 10 books on such subjects as the feather trade, the recovery of the endangered whooping crane, the mockingbird, the purple martin, the armadillo, the eucalyptus tree, and more recently the international steps being made to conserve albatrosses. He continues to travel the world extensively and lecture on physical geography, cultural history, and wildlife.

Matt Warnock Turner, a fifth-generation Texan, is a naturalist, teacher, and free-lance writer who works as a market researcher at UT’s McCombs School of Business. Son of a well-known botanist, he applies his humanities training (PhD in literature from Yale) to enrich our understanding of the plant kingdom around us. He has published both scientific and popular works, including the award-winning, Remarkable Plants of Texas (2009). He’s twice appeared as a guest on PBS’s “Central Texas Gardener” and starred in the PBS documentary, “Wildflowers: Seeds of History.”

In their Unnatural Texas? The Invasive Species Dilemma, Robin and Matt investigate the problems posed by so-called invasive species. These non-native plants and animals are increasingly affecting the economic, medical, and ecological health of Texas. Their new book is both a primer and a “think piece.” Drawing upon a representative sample–from across the state and over five centuries–of approximately 20 non-native species (including mammals, birds, fish, insects, mollusks, trees, water plants, and fungi), they introduce readers to Texas’ “big hitters,” discuss a range of arguments for controlling them, and explore how culture and shifting attitudes influence their management.