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Tucson Audubon Society
Burrowing In at Simpson
by Kendall
Kroesen, Permaculture Specialist
(This article is reprinted from the March 2006 Vermilion Flycatcher, newsletter of the Tucson Audubon Society. To receive the newsletter in the mail, join Tucson Audubon.)
A gold miner in the Mojave Desert once said to me, "The desert may seem empty, but if everybody stood up you’d be in a crowd."
Working at the Simpson habitat restoration site, I’ve often thought that if all the lizards stood up, all the birds perched where you could see them, and all the mammals came out of their holes, you’d be in a crowd of wildlife.
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One of the rarer faces in that crowd would be the Burrowing Owl. In the farmlands and fallow fields of the northern Avra Valley, Burrowing Owls nest in holes made by burrowing mammals and they forage along the crop margins and regenerating desert. We see them here and there.
However, burrowing owls may become much more common with continued success of a relocation program led by Wild at Heart, a non-profit based in the Phoenix area. Noting the steady decline of this species in recent years, Bob Fox, Greg Clark and other Wild at Heart volunteers have mounted an impressive program of owl relocation.
Habitat loss is a major cause of Burrowing Owl decline. In southern Arizona this species likes to live on the floor of desert basins, precisely where the most urban development is happening. Burrowing Owl habitat loss in the Phoenix area, particularly in the West Valley, is estimated at about 1,000 acres per month.
Wild at Heart is capturing owls before they are trapped in their burrows and killed by the tractors that blade the desert. They hold and feed them for about 60 days, hoping to break their "fidelity" to their old nest site. Then they relocate them to sites stretching from the Arizona Strip (just south of St. George, Utah) to Cochise in southeastern Arizona. Many have been relocated to the Tucson area, to the Simpson site, the Kino Ecosystem Restoration Project and other sites.
Early in 2004, artificial burrows were constructed at the south end of the Simpson site and, in March, six owls were released. During the spring and summer of 2005, a much larger complex of artificial burrows was constructed and, in September, 18 more owls were released. In both cases, the owls were released into a shade cloth tent and held inside for 30 days. This helped them get used to their new location in hopes they would stay there when the tent was taken down.
An Arizona Game and Fish Department study is beginning to monitor the success of these artificial burrow complexes, including those at the Simpson site.
There is no space here to describe the interesting process of building artificial burrows, but you can find out more at Wild at Heart’s web site, http://mirror-pole.com/wild_at_heart/intro/wah_intro_fs.html.
Nor is there room to list all the people who have contributed to this effort. Briefly, we would like to thank Greg Clark and Bob Fox of Wild at Heart for their great work; (City of) Tucson Water, which manages the Simpson land, for their logistical help; and scores of volunteers who built the burrows, put up the tents, fed the owls and, finally, took the tents down. More work of this kind may be done in the future, in addition to regular habitat restoration work. Contact Kendall Kroesen at (520) 206-9900 or email if you would like to volunteer.
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This page was updated on 07/13/06