By MELISSA EISELEIN
The Press-Enterprise
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Richard Aldersley is doing his part to protect burrowing owls -- and hoping to earn the rank of Eagle Scout while he's at it.
As part of his Eagle Scout project, the 17-year-old Murrieta, Calif. resident and a crew of about 10 scouts built 10 nesting boxes and buried them last weekend on Riverside County Regional Park District land near Lake Skinner east of Temecula.
The owls are listed as endangered in Canada and threatened in Mexico. Though their numbers are dwindling, in Southern California they are classified as a "species of concern," said Jared Bond, wildlife biologist with Riverside County's Environmental Programs Department.
"People have tried to get them listed before and the scientific communities as well as some of the agencies haven't concluded that the scientific evidence is there yet to warrant a listing. Whether that is true or not, that has been the verdict this far," Bond said.
Armed with a pick axe, shovels and bottled water, the scouts buried two wood and eight plastic boxes near an area where burrowing owls are nesting.
"There's other boxes we put in that the scouts made that only have one entrance. Both of them are effective in providing nesting habitat and suitable refuge for the owls," Bond said. "If they can just duck in there and avoid the hawks or avoid the other predators they'll have a greater chance of survival."
The boxes have a removable lid that will allow researchers to open them if necessary. A 4-foot piece of plastic pipe is attached to each lid. The pipe provides ventilation for the nest and gives biologists an opening through which they can insert fiber optics equipment to view the nesting birds without disrupting their home, Richard said.
"We're digging about 2 feet down for the insulation to keep them warm. Any higher the coyotes and get to it, dig in and eat them so we want to dig it as deep as we can," Richard said. "We install them, put the lid on, cover them up with dirt and they're ready to go."
A 1991-93 statewide census estimated that there are about 9,200 pairs of burrowing owls in California. The number of burrowing owls declined about 60 percent from the 1980s to the early 1990s, according to the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group's Web site. That number is expected to decrease if the long-legged, yellow-eyed, birds are not protected, experts say.
"They love the open grassland, flatland areas and those are also the best places to develop. Their habitat just gets built over," Bond said.
That's what is going to happen to an area in Winchester where some burrowing owls are nesting, said Kenny Graff, director of Riverside County's Land Acquisition and Property Management. A new four-lane road will be going through the county property north of Buck Road in Winchester, he said.
"It's been on the general plan for years. That's why we're trying to get them to move over here where we can protect them," Graff said.
The scouts buried the boxes about 400-600 yards east of the birds' current burrows.
"We're just trying to do our best to create habitat and provide as much suitable habitat as we can right now," Bond said.
E-mail Melissa Eiselein at meiselein(at)PE.com
sighting/worried
I have a pair of burrowing owls on my property near Palm Springs, CA. The neighbor's dogs disrupt the burrow. What can I do to help these little guys?
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