Burrowing Owl next to a drainage culvert. Owls often displaced by development projects will nest in culverts only to lose their eggs when it rains. Zoo staff came to the rescue and built a artificial burrow that the owls soon moved into.
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Here in the Chihuahuan Desert life is not always what it seems. Take a hole that you find in the desert for example, ever wonder what creatures live inside? One day you decide to investigate 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 off most potential enemies, 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 often on the way when small groups of citizens organize themselves and build artificial nesting burrows for owls with no 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 makes 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 help to organize a neighborhood Burrowing Owl Rescue Team by contacting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Urban Biologist at (915) 781-1932 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.
Join others in El Paso interested in protecting our native wildlife on Facebook.
Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition 