The old days of catching horned lizards are over.
"We used to catch them all the time and play with them and put fingernail polish on them so when we let them go we would know if we caught them again," said parent Gayle Cook. "Now you can't find them anywhere hardly."
But Texas Parks & Wildlife has found a new way for kids to get involved with the endangered state reptile of Texas.
"Why is the horned toad's population going down?" Kirby Carroll of Texas Parks and Wildlife asked a few kids.
"Because most people are using pesticides to kill off fire ants, the harvest ants which are the horny toad's main food source," said one kid.
"People moving in and killing their habitat, there's not enough native clump grass," said another kid.
Elementary through high school kids are writing essays to try and help the Texas Horned Lizard through a statewide contest.
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8 Outdoors
An essay contest for students to learn about endangered species.
 
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"It's really a detective story. We have contestant packets that give students suggestions on the steps to take in researching horned lizards, the questions to ask their interviewees. Where to go for other information such as how has the agricultural picture in their community changed? Those packets are available for free on our Web site," said Lee Ann Linam, of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Along with pit tags and radio backpacks to track horned lizards, Parks and Wildlife hopes the information from the essays will help answer some questions and pave the way for reintroduction of the threatened reptiles.
Previous essay winners won a field trip of their choice to any state park or wildlife management area.
The fifth-graders from Lawn chose to visit a bat emergence at the Old Tunnel Wildlife Management Area.
