Can we learn to share
El Paso with burrowing owls? 

Here in the Chihuahuan Desert life is not always what it seems.  Take a burrow in the sandy soil for example, ever wonder what creatures live inside?   One day you decide to investigate a little hole you have found and suddenly jump back when you hear the sound of a rattlesnake.  But low and behold after a long period of patient observation there is no rattlesnake to be seen.  Days later you return to the hole and once again are startled by a rattling sound.  You look all around, but still can’t find the snake.  Where is it?   As it turns out inside the hole are some juvenile burrowing owls making rattlesnake-like buzz sounds and successfully scaring most potential enemies away, including you!    

Four hundred years after the Juan de Oñate expedition celebrated the first Thanksgiving here in El Paso, one of our desert’s long time residents, the burrowing owl, has somehow found a way to survive. Burrowing owls help to keep in check desert insects, rodents and small mammal populations while increasing the diversity of wildlife in the surrounding area by providing food for larger predators like hawks, foxes and coyotes. 

As urban sprawl continues to chew up the city’s last remaining natural landscapes of Chihuahuan Desert, bulldozers continue at every turn destroying important low elevation habitat areas important to burrowing owls and other desert creatures.  Fortunately there is some good news.  Help is on the way as a small group of citizens have organized a rescue effort and are now working to help these amazing little owls find a place to live. 

Groups involved include friends of Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, the El Paso Zoo, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and faculty and students at Mission del Paso Community College. Those who are picking up shovels and buying up large sections of PVC pipe needed to assemble and install artificial owl nesting sites, soon discover that their hard work is making a difference when owls within days move into their new homes and then successfully raise new families of owl chicks.

If you know of some burrowing owls that may be in need of help you can join El Paso’s new Burrowing Owl Rescue Team by contacting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Urban Biologist at (915) 774-9603 or email at Lois.Balin@tpwd.state.tx.us.  We all need a place to call home here in El Paso, including those who were here long before Oñate and his fellow travelers first set foot on El Paso soil. Yes, we can share El Paso with native species of wildlife.