Holley: Horned toad‘ whisperer’ was ‘just fascinated’
although he doesn’t call himself that. Proprietor of the Horney Toad Ranch on a mountaintop south of this picturesque Big Bend town, he describes himself as an ant farmer, among a number of other vocations and avocations.
“I’ve had old ranchers tell me that horny toads live 80 years or so, but I think about 20 years is more likely,” he said. “Ol’ Rip would have been dehydrated long before that.”
A political introduction
Ferran, 55, is a cordial, unassuming fellow. He’s quick to tell you he’s no scientist — his degree from the University of Florida is in anthropology, with a focus on African studies — but I’d be inclined to take his word on Ol’ Rip. His knowledge of Phrynosoma cornutum (Texas horned lizard) must surely measure up to the best-trained wildlife biologist. In addition to reading, conferring and researching, he spends hours lying on his stomach on the scrubby, ant bed-pocked patch of earth near the Ferran home, watching the spike-backed little reptiles and recording their habits. “We don’t have TV,” he said. Friends, neighbors, landscapers and bulldozer operators bring him specimens. Not long ago, he was on aisle No. 4 at McCoy’s Building Supply, and there was a horned toad at his feet.
“It was like a lightning bolt, like he had dropped down from heaven,” Ferran said.
He sees his ranch as a preserve, for both the horned toads and the ants. The miniature, armored lizards hang around the stony, brush-covered rangeland on the lookout for ants, and, over time, he gets to know them as individuals (the lizards, not the ants.) They hibernate underground for months at a time, but come back to the same area every year.
“If they make it to a certain size, they seem to be successful,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out how long it takes for them to get to that size.”
Ferran, who grew up in Florida, was introduced to the horned toad as a youngster by Barry Goldwater. (Yes, that Barry Goldwater.) His father had gotten to know Goldwater’s daughter in Florida, and on a family vacation out west when Ferran was in the seventh grade, the family stopped by to see the Arizona senator and former presidential candidate at his home in Scottsdale.
“I stayed in his house and just roamed the property,” he recalled. “He was an exemplary person. He heavily influenced me, not politically but in the nature sense.”
Goldwater showed the youngster his ham-radio operation, taught him to shoot a .22, took him to the Grand Canyon, introduced him to a rattlesnake and a horned toad.
“That horny toad stayed in my mind,” he said. “I was just fascinated with them.”
Ferran has gotten fascinated with a lot of things over the years and seems to have succeeded at most. He’s a safari guide and professional hunter who takes groups to southern Africa every year for hunting, fishing, shark encounters and wine and brandy tours. He’s a wildlife photographer and a design consultant who confers with zoos and wildlife refuges. He’s also a builder of off-thegrid solar homes, including the comfortable, double-structure compound where he and his wife Mechele live. After an extended tour of the American West some years back, the Ferrans and their two daughters, now grown, settled near Alpine, because the terrain reminds them of one of Rob’s favorite places in the world, Namibia.
Growing up with the critter
And, of course, horned toads still inhabit far West Texas. Texans of a certain age grew up with the spiky, little guys, whether we lived in the Piney Woods, the South Texas brush country or the Panhandle plains. We played with them and hoped to see them spurt blood from their eyes (actually their eyelids). We hitched them to wheeled matchboxes and rubbed their tummies until they settled into horned-toad somnolence.
No more. My early-30s son Pete grew up in Austin and told me he’s never seen a live horned toad. He’s typical, unfortunately.
The reason they’re scarce across much of the state has to do indirectly with imported fire ants, introduced accidentally into the southern United States in the mid-20th century. The ferocious creatures displaced the native harvester ants we usually call red ants, which make up as much as 70 percent to 90 percent of a mature horned toad’s diet — as many as 200 ants a day, Ferran said. No more harvester ants, no more horny toads, particularly after anti-fire ant insecticides, broadcast indiscriminately, also killed harvester ants, as well as grubs, termites and other small insects that juvenile horned toads consume until they begin to specialize.
We also paved over and developed the patchy, open areas that horned toads need for nesting, hunting, hiding from snakes and other predators and, since they’re reptiles, thermoregulation. Field, rangeland and pasture became ever-spreading Georgetown, Pearland, Plano. The only horned frogs left in much of Texas were on TCU football-helmet decals.
A threatened species
You can blame Boy’s Life Magazine, as well. The commercial pet trade took untold numbers from the wild, and in the 1950s and ‘60s, you could order horned toads from Boys Life and other publications. No one knew how to care for the too-cute-for-their-own-good creatures. For example, you don’t set out a bowl of water. As Ferran explained, a horned toad relies on the morning dew that collects on its spiny back and runs along tiny channels into its mouth. They’re docile, but they don’t like being handled, either. As a family pet, they’d hang on for a few weeks, probably in some kid’s sand-filled aquarium, and then they’d die.
Although they’re the official state lizard, the horned toad encompasses only half its original range. They’re listed as a threatened species, so it’s illegal to take, possess, transport or sell them without a special permit. Unless they’re sharing the wild with snakes and roadrunnerrs, their main threats are cats, dogs and pesticides, plus vehicles.
“I want to expand awareness that people should not harass them or the ants,” Ferran said on a windy morning earlier this week. “I want to help people understand: No ants, no horny toads.”