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SIERRA VISTA — A new man-made habitat for burrowing owls was dug in February between Elfrida and Tombstone near McNeal.
In partnership with the Wild at Heart environmental organization, Southeastern Arizona Contractors Association members AMS Construction, Rutherford Diversified Industries and Southwest Gas Co. have contributed the resources to dig trenches to accommodate 100 burrows, SACA Executive Director Tom Heckendorn said Thursday.
The McNeal landowner is so pleased with the project, he’s going to allow 100 more nearby, Heckendorn said.
Since 2002, Wild At Heart has dug thousands of burrows in Arizona for burrowing owls, which grow to about 9 inches tall with about a 20-inch wing span. They eat bugs and rodents, even bunnies, and like to live next to farms, ranches around grasslands, which are biomes that attract their food.
 Backhoes from members of the Southeast Arizona Contractors Association dig burrows recently on property near McNeal. The project is part of Wild at Heart’s efforts to build homes for burrowing owls. (Courtesy of the Southeast Arizona Contractors Association) |
As such, new housing developments tend to displace burrowing owls.
The ongoing project has included burrows dug in Elgin, Palominas, and the Kingman, Golden Valley and Peoria areas, as well as some other Arizona Game and Fish Department and Bureau of Land Management-sanctioned locations, according to Wild at Heart.
Also contributing to the diminishing burrowing-owl habitat, people have historically made sport of killing burrow-digging mammals such as prairie dogs in large numbers. Pocket gophers are the main mammals still around Arizona that dig natural burrows for these owls.
SACA member volunteers and inmate labor from the prison in Douglas provided a work party to fill the owl trenches in McNeal.
REPORTER Gentry Braswell can be reached at 515-4680 or by e-mail at gentry.braswell@svherald.com.
