June 1, 2006
Wildlife Escape Ramps for Water Troughs
The Diablo Trust, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bat Conservation International(BCI), the Arizona Game & Fish Department, the Grand Canyon Trust, the USDI-Bureau of Land Management, and the Babbitt Ranches have joined together in a "community build day" to build and install wildlife escape ramps in livestock water troughs on public and private lands. This is an outgrowth of the Water for Wildlife program sponsored by Bat Conservation International.
When: This collaborative range and wildlife event will take place on Saturday, June 10 and Sunday the 11th.
Where: Meeting at the Arizona Game & Fish Department's office at 3500 S. Lake Mary Rd.
We will start building ramps out of expanded steel mesh around 9:00 a.m. Saturday, and should
be installing those ramps on neighboring ranches later that afternoon and Sunday morning. BCI will be supplying the steel and lunch, and the Game & Fish and NRCS will be bringing cutting torches and other tools. A handful of volunteers from local civic organizations will be helping as well. Whatever ramps we are not able to install that afternoon and Sunday will be made available to local range managers free of charge at the Flagstaff NRCS office.
During times of drought, and where the majority of surface is captured in water developments, wildlife mortality in troughs can be significant. Installing properly designed and placed wildlife escape structures will ensure safe access for wildlife, while maintaining water quality for livestock. Feel free to forward this invitation on to your volunteers, fellow ranchers, and any other range or wildlife managers that might be interested in participating.
We look forward to seeing you on Saturday!
Here is an excerpt from the BCI Field Manual. For more, go to http://www.batcon.org/.
Because bat and bird species’ needs vary widely among western habitats and management districts, a thorough investigation is required to assess local issues, attitudes, and resources as well as management policies. Wildlife escape ramp needs vary among tank types used in different areas, and documentation of local use and needs is essential for determining the most cost-effective balance between tank size and shape. In 2004, The Water for Wildlife Project, with assistance from Red Willow Research Inc., the USDA-NRCS Flagstaff Field Office, Northern Arizona University, the Arizona Strip office of the Bureau of Land Management, the Gila National Forest, and the Arizona Game & Fish Department, surveyed approximately 300 livestock water developments in Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, and Utah. Also in 2004, NRCS Biologist and graduate student Stu Tuttle and Water for Wildlife director Dan Taylor conducted bat access experiments using infra-red videotaping to determine how bats respond to obstructions, and fluctuating water levels, at livestock troughs on the Arizona Game & Fish Department’s House Rock Wildlife Area. Tuttle also conducted a more intensive slate of experiments at the Raymond Ranch Wildlife Area on the effects of modified troughs on bat use (bat response to water development size, and obstacles), with the results being submitted for publication in early 2005. A preliminary summary of results is available below.Posted by The Naturalist at June 1, 2006 5:07 PMBCI and it’s partners will conduct additional field trials in 2005 to provide additional data. BCI will also analyze over 10,000 capture records of 19 species of bats from pools and tanks of measured sizes, collected over the last decade at their bat conservation and management workshops in Portal, Arizona. This analysis when combined with the field trials will provide the first scientific basis for recommendations on tank dimensions and escape remedies, and will be combined with the 2004-2005 water development review to begin preparation of a peer-reviewed handbook for range and wildlife managers that will clearly illustrate and explain both the problems and remedies for bat and bird mortality at livestock watering tanks. The target date for the new water resource publication is December 31, 2005.
Collaboration and Training
By early 2006, BCI plans to begin organizing regional water resource training workshops. These will be co-hosted by national and local partners to raise widespread awareness of identified problems and solutions and to gain ongoing volunteer collaboration. BCI will also work with livestock equipment manufacturers such as Powder River to develop water tanks that can be certified as Wildlife Friendly.
There is excellent potential for far-reaching consequences beyond the initial cost of BCI’s proposed three-year partnership. For example, Powder River, one of the West’s largest manufacturers of livestock equipment, has already expressed a strong interest in collaborating with BCI to develop and market “Wildlife Friendly” water troughs, and BCI will seek partnership with leading wildlife conservation organizations to provide co-certification. This alone could have far reaching consequences.This project has enormous potential for reversing a chronic and growing threat to western wildlife at substantial cost savings to federal agencies, which already face legal threats. Through reliance on voluntary collaboration, current combatants could become model rangeland partners with lasting impacts.