Why do roadrunners disappear from the desert each winter?

These birds can't migrate, but local ecologist has a possible answer

James W. Cornett
DESERT [Sun] magazine

No bird is so odd and well known as the roadrunner. Unlike most birds with which we are familiar, a roadrunner runs rather than flies, readily embraces humans and, as a predator, feeds on some of the most unappetizing animals imaginable including scorpions, black widows and rattlesnakes.

There are two kinds of roadrunner: a small one called the Lesser Roadrunner, Geococcyx velox, and a big one known as the Greater Roadrunner, Geococcyx californianus. The Greater Roadrunner is the one with which we are familiar, in part, because of Warner Bros. “Roadrunner” cartoon series memorable for the ever-pursuing adversary, Wile E. Coyote. The Lesser Roadrunner is a Mexican species whose nearest population lies in the state of Sonora, 300 miles from the U.S. border. Other than its weight of 8 ounces (two-thirds that of its larger cousin), nothing is known about it.

Prefers to run rather than fly

There is no doubt our roadrunner prefers to run rather than fly. Over the years my daughters, co-workers and myself have raised dozens of roadrunners from eggs and hatchlings – brought to us as orphans by valley residents. Hatchling roadrunners grow rapidly on a diet of mealworms, crickets and commercially available frozen mice. Within four weeks they reach adult size.

With access to free and cooperative subjects, I was able to take photographs of roadrunners in novel situations. I particularly wanted an image of a roadrunner in flight, impossible to obtain in the wild and no easy feat even when working with tame birds. Enlisting the aid of my oldest daughter, Mandy, I had her toss birds into the air assuming they would flap their wings and glide for a short distance. With every toss, however, each roadrunner glided immediately to the ground and so fast I could never get a photograph. Mandy suggested she throw the bird over the local, community pool. This worked since each roadrunner was obviously born with an aversion to landing on water. It was forced to flap its wings several times, then glide to the edge of the pool. Using the technique, I finally got the photograph I desired as the bird remained airborne for several seconds.

Roadrunners as fliers

Roadrunners are not just gliders but can fly, albeit poorly. They occasionally flap their wings for a few seconds, reach an altitude of 10 feet, then glide to a landing. I have never seen a roadrunner make two successive flights and doubt they can. An examination of a roadrunner’s skeleton reveals no keel on the breastbone as is found in birds capable of flight. (The keel is a bony ridge that grows from the sternum. It’s the point of attachment of large pectoral muscles necessary for prolonged flight.) With tiny pectoral muscles, sustained flight is impossible and even sustained gliding is difficult. The greatest glide time I witnessed was in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. From the Lost Mine Trail, a roadrunner launched itself off a ledge and glided for 12 seconds down into a canyon, a vertical descent of 500 feet.

How fast?

“How fast can a roadrunner run?” is a question I am often asked. The top speed given in the literature is 18 miles per hour. I put the top speed closer to 20 based on a roadrunner running alongside my vehicle for a short distance. In either case, a roadrunner’s speed is less than half that of a race horse. Winning Brew reached nearly 44 mph at the 2008 Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Penn. A roadrunner’s top speed is also less than a human sprinter. Usain Bolt, the Olympic gold medalist from Jamaica, was once clocked at 27 miles per hour. Despite comparisons, the much smaller size of the roadrunner enables it to reach top speed faster than a horse or human, and my money would be on the roadrunner in a 10-yard sprint. It is also more maneuverable and, using its wings and tail as breaks and rudders, can change direction in an instant; a critical ability when chasing lizards and other small, fleet-footed animals.

As a predator

The diet of a roadrunner is limited by three factors. Prey must be alive and moving, not too large to be subdued and not poisonous. Thus, dead animals are off limits as are large animals that weigh more than a pound. The big black Eleodes beetles and all toad species are not consumed since they are poisonous. (A poison is a toxic substance that enters the body passively, usually when swallowed. A venom is a toxic substance actively injected as when a person bitten by a spider or venomous snake. Poisons can kill if swallowed. If venoms are swallowed, they are broken down into harmless components during the digestive process.)

A roadrunner’s diverse appetite should make it a welcome addition to any neighborhood. Crickets and cockroaches are routinely consumed. The shells of garden snails offer no protection as a roadrunner smashes them against a hard surface, flings away shell fragments and swallows the torso in one gulp. My wife is particularly fond of our local roadrunner’s willingness to pluck black widows off their webs, crush them in its beak and swallow entire spiders.

I must confess there are some creatures most homeowners prefer a roadrunner not eat. Nestling songbirds are consumed as are their parents, if they can be caught. There is at least one record of a roadrunner leaping into the air to capture a hummingbird. I never dreamed fast-flying (and mosquito-eating) dragonflies could be snapped up by roadrunners but now have seen this happen four times in my own yard. Lizards were once common around our home, but not anymore. For the first time last spring, a roadrunner built a nest and raised a brood of four chicks in a shrub at the side of our home. By the time the young left the nest, every spiny, whiptail and side-blotched lizard within 100 feet of our yard was gone.

The snake eater

A roadrunner’s propensity to eat snakes, most importantly venomous species, dramatically enhances their image among laypersons and at least partially makes up for the culinary digressions described above. For the record, a roadrunner approaches any snake as though it were venomous, and no roadrunner is immune to the bite of a venomous snake. If bitten, and venom injected, a roadrunner dies. Nonetheless, there is no roadrunner alive that will not attack and kill a small rattlesnake. Victims are generally less than 18 inches in length, though much larger rattlers will by harassed by yanking on their tail.

A roadrunner is too fast and too agile to be bitten by even the fastest-striking rattlesnake. A roadrunner approaches a rattler with wings and tail spread wide, using them as a decoy much like a bull fighter uses a cape. The function of the display is to elicit a strike which the roadrunner avoids by leaping into the air. After several strikes, the roadrunner gauges the length and speed of the snake’s defense and readies itself for the kill. In the middle of the strike, when the snake is most extended, the roadrunner grabs the head in its mandibles and repeatedly pummels the snake against the ground. After battering, the vertebral column is broken in multiple places and the rattlesnake is effectively paralyzed.

A roadrunner’s mandibles don’t have sharp edges and it lacks the powerful talons of a hawk. Prey can’t be torn into pieces and so must usually be swallowed whole. Long animals, such as whiptail lizards and snakes, must be swallowed in stages. It may take well over an hour before the entire animal disappears down the roadrunner’s throat. It is not unusual to see a roadrunner running about with the tail of a snake or lizard hanging from its mouth.

A hibernator?

I first became seriously interested in roadrunners when, time after time I was asked, “Where do roadrunners go in winter?” Of course, they don’t go anywhere since, as poor fliers, they can’t migrate. (I have never heard nor seen roadrunners running south for the winter.) My own field notes, however, do indicate roadrunners are observed much less in winter. In addition, desert residents often relate how a roadrunner visited them daily through spring, summer and early fall. Then, rather suddenly in late fall, the bird’s daily appearances become less consistent or, more typically, stop altogether. What happens to roadrunners in winter?

One possible explanation is roadrunners hibernate. Roadrunners, unlike most other birds, enter torpor every night and allow their body temperature to drop significantly. It is conceivable that some birds extend this torpor in winter to days, weeks or even months to save energy when food is less available. There is, after all, one bird species known to hibernate: the common poor-will, Phalaenoptilus nuttallii, that I wrote about a few months ago. Might the roadrunner be a second species? No roadrunner has been found in torpor for even a single day much less the entire winter. Finding such a bird during the daytime would be a strong indication that at least some roadrunners hibernate.

Roadrunners and humans

Encounters between humans and roadrunners are both frequent and diverse. For example, it is not unusual for roadrunners to follow hikers, particularly in state and national parks where people are likely to be on their best behavior. Lest a human mistakenly believe a tag-along roadrunner wants to make friends, be aware the bird is most likely hungry and on the lookout for an easy meal. To a roadrunner, even the smallest among us is a lumbering mammal capable of stirring up insects and reptiles as we walk down a trail. Roadrunners follow us just as they might a steer or horse.

My most memorable encounter with roadrunners involved a British broadcasting crew who wanted to film their behaviors. Before making the trip from London, however, they needed assurances the birds would appear and they could film them up close. I told them it was very likely the birds would show up since we were conducting feeding experiments and the birds appeared every morning for free handouts. I was not sure they were convinced but, nevertheless, arrived a few weeks later. I had them transfer their gear to my SUV, so the birds would not be frightened by a strange vehicle. We could neither see the birds nor hear the clattering of their bills as we drove slowly down the road towards the study site. Then, suddenly, the male and female ran out of the desert, launched themselves through the open windows and into the vehicle – while we were still moving! The birds perched briefly on the shoulders and heads of film crew members as they investigated every corner of the interior looking for crickets and mealworms. “Is that close enough for you?” I asked, smiling.

Roadrunners in the house

Bob and Marilyn Shoemaker lived on a golf course surrounded by homes. They heard I was studying roadrunners and called to tell me a pair of roadrunners had built a nest 4 feet off the ground just outside their back door. The Shoemakers also had two small dogs that entered the backyard whenever they wished through a pet door. The dogs were intimidated by the roadrunners as they watched the birds from a distance and never moved towards them. Sometimes the roadrunners would rush the dogs, scaring them back into the house.

When I arrived, the Shoemakers suggested I sit in the living room and wait for the roadrunners to tap on the back slider.

“They do that?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, every morning,” Mrs. Shoemaker replied.

In less than five minutes two roadrunners were at the slider and started tapping on the glass with their bills. Mr. Shoemaker opened the slider and the birds immediately came in, looked around, then jumped up on the drainboard in the kitchen. On a paper plate were two dozen mealworms about half of which were quickly gathered up by the parent birds. Bills filled, the roadrunners rushed outside, jumped up into the nest and stuffed the insects into the mouths of the chicks. When finished, they came back into the kitchen snapped up the rest of the mealworms and repeated the process. The parents came back into the kitchen a third time but seeing no meal-worms left the house. They would not tap on the slider again until the next morning.

Glass tapping started after the Shoemakers began feeding the roadrunners mealworms on the patio. As the roadrunners became habituated to the practice, they started arriving before the Shoemakers went outside. The birds tried to get inside when they saw the Shoemakers in the house. Initially, they probably pecked at the glass probing for a way to gain entry. Eventually, the roadrunner pair made the connection between glass tapping, the Shoemakers’ response and getting the mealworms. The Shoemakers believed they had trained the roadrunners. But since only the roadrunners benefited directly from the relationship, it seemed to me it was the roadrunners that had conditioned the Shoemakers.

Jerry's pet roadrunners

Jerry Tyree of Sun City, Palm Desert, had a pair of roadrunners that came through his yard, almost daily. He had always fed “Suzie” and “Jerome” mealworms and crickets, and occasionally mice from the pet store. One day I asked Jerry if I could bring my students to his home to see his roadrunners. He jumped at the opportunity to show off the birds. The day we arrived he set out folding chairs on his patio facing the golf course. After greetings and introductions, we all sat down. Jerry asked that each student hold out one hand, so he could place a half dozen mealworms in their palms. He asked them to gently close their hands over the mealworms. Once prepped, Jerry called out “Suzie, Jerome” and within 30 seconds two adult roadrunners jumped atop the low wall that separated his patio from the fairway. “Open your hands,” said Jerry. As soon as the students revealed the mealworms, the two roadrunners jumped on the closest lap and proceeded to gobble down each mealworm before moving on to the next very amazed student.

Feeding roadrunners

Over the years I have met hundreds of people that feed roadrunners. Nearly every human food provider, at least initially, gives raw hamburger to the birds. A few even give beef tenderloin, erroneously believing they are providing a “better” meal. A meal of only hamburger or tenderloin is as bad for roadrunners as it is for humans, even worse if a parent bird feeds the meat to a rapidly developing chick. Most of the ingredients necessary for proper development are lacking in hamburger, resulting in growth deformities in developing roadrunners, in some cases after only a single meal.

I advise that if one insists on feeding local roadrunners, give them crickets or mealworms which can be purchased from pet stores or online. Of course, if they fill up on artificial foods, they may not eat the black widows and snails you could probably do without.

Bill would curb massive Cadiz desert water project

Cadiz Inc. plans to pump the Mojave Desert aquifer and transport that water to Southern California communities. (Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

The battle over plans by a Los Angeles company to sell water pumped from aquifers underneath Mojave Desert conservation areas heated up again this week when state legislation was amended to require a new round of state reviews.

The legislation’s new language, by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, would stop major pumping until state land and wildlife officials determined that groundwater extractions would not harm wildlife or cultural resources.

The legislation is in response to the Cadiz desert water project that has been prioritized by the Trump administration.

Cadiz officials called the legislation a flawed attempt to further delay the project.

Cadiz wants to pump groundwater from wells on land its owns in the Cadiz Valley that is surrounded by the Mojave Trails National Monument. These wells would draw water from connected aquifers below the Cadiz, Bristol and Fenner valleys that supply springs within the monuments as well as the Mojave National Preserve.

The water would be piped more than 40 miles across federal lands along a railroad right of way to the Colorado River Aqueduct. It would then be ferried to water customers in suburban Southern California.

The project has been staunchly opposed by environmental groups and other desert advocates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sponsored the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 that created the Mojave National Preserve and protected 69 wilderness areas between the Mexican border and the town of Bishop.

If it passes the Legislature and is signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the new state law also would be called the California Desert Protection Act.

Contacted by cell phone, Friedman, a first-year legislator, said her aim is to conserve the water below the desert conservation areas that wildlife depends upon.

“This is the water that supports the desert’s ecosystem, and it is vitally important,” she said.

The law would prohibit taking groundwater from a large swath of the Mojave unless the State Lands Commission, working with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, finds that pumping “will not adversely affect the natural or cultural resources of those federal and state lands,” the bill says.

Friedman said the Cadiz project could go forward under the law if the new state reviews find it does no harm.

The Cadiz company issued a statement Thursday, July 6, that contends the legislation is designed “to further delay the Cadiz Water Project” by using a “gut and amend” legislative process, which is “universally condemned.” (The original bill, AB 1000, pertained to water meter standards.)

The company’s statement said the project was previously reviewed under state environmental disclosure laws and “found to have no adverse impacts on the environment.” Those reviews were done about 17 years ago.

The Cadiz project would “create a safe, sustainable water supply for 400,000 people,” as well as about “$1 billion economic activity and close to 6,000 jobs,” the company statement added.

The Santa Margarita Water District in southern Orange County plans to buy between 5,000 to 10,000 acre-feet a year, said district spokesman Jim Leach. In all, the project would pump as much as 50,000 acre-feet a year, depending on how the water tables are affected by the extraction, he said.

“We are really disappointed,” Leach said. “We see this legislation as a roadblock to delay the project.”

But Feinstein and other critics maintain the Cadiz project is unsustainable.

In May, the senator released a letter from the U.S. Geological Survey that said a 2000 analysis by the agency found that the Cadiz, Bristol and Fenner basins naturally recharged water at rates of 2,000 to 10,000 acre-feet a year — just a fraction the rate water would be pumped out of these basins.

The Trump administration has made moves favorable to the project. In April, it rescinded a 2014 policy directive that was used to find in 2015 that Cadiz needed to obtain a federal right of way permit and thus had to complete comprehensive environmental studies before it could build a water pipeline in the railroad right of way.

The Trump transition team also put Cadiz on a list of priority projects.

“If the federal government is not going to do these environmental reviews, the state has a responsibility to do them,” Friedman said.

Utah's Great Salt Lake is shrinking

Years of drought and over-irrigation have caused Utah's Great Salt Lake to shrink at an alarming rate, recent satellite photos show. (NASA)

By Kacey Deame
Fox News

After the Great Lakes, Utah's Great Salt Lake is the largest body of water (by area) in the United States. Back in the middle of the 19th century, when pioneers first arrived in the area, the lake spread across roughly 1,600 square miles. Now, the lake covers an area of only about 1,050 square miles, new satellite photos from NASA reveal. In October, the Great Salt Lake reached its lowest level in recorded history, at 4,191 feet deep.

These dramatic declines in water levels come from years of human activity — namely, diverting river water, which would normally fill the lake, for agriculture and industry, according to NASA. The agency estimates that about 40 percent of the river's water is diverted from the lake. These activities, along with the ongoing drought in the West, have drained the historic lake. [Gallery: Rainbow of Life in Great Salt Lake]

The NASA images show changes in the Farmington Bay basin of Great Salt Lake, an area that is home to many diverse wildlife, including migratory birds. Decreasing water levels in the Bay not only affect the ecology of the area, but could divert the bird populations who migrate to the basin for food.

"Farmington Bay has been nearly desiccated as the result of the combined effects of drought and water withdrawals from the rivers feeding the lake," Wayne Wurtsbaugh, a watershed sciences researcher at Utah State University, said in a statement. "Farmington Bay is an immensely important feeding area for migratory shorebirds and waterfowl. Even at the low level we have now, it is still important, but the greatly reduced size has diminished its value."

The NASA satellite images show changes in the Farmington Bay basin from 2011 to 2016. Scientists estimate that more than three-quarters of the lake bed is now exposed in the bay, significantly diminishing the food available for wildlife.

In February, Wurtsbaugh and his colleagues released a white paper on how water development has impacted the Great Salt Lake. Their study found that river flow into the basin has been reduced by 39 percent since the middle of the 19th century. Reversing this trend would involve more conservation efforts, especially for agricultural irrigation, which accounts for approximately 63 percent of water usage in Utah, Wurtsbaugh said.

Even with conservation efforts and more ecologically conscious development, the lake could continue to diminish due to climate change, the researchers said.

"A wild card for the fate of the lake is what global climate change may do to the basin,” Wurtsbaugh said. "Warmer air temperatures are projected to lower runoff, but our data shown in the white paper suggests there haven't been climate change effects on the runoff yet."

Quail Forever needs volunteers to help restore seven guzzlers

The Stoddard Valley guzzler number A-45, serving the Central Mojave Desert, before it was restored by the High Desert chapter of Quail Forever.

By Jim Matthews
www.OutdoorNewsService.com

The High Desert Chapter of Quail Forever needs a few good men. Or women.

The volunteer organization has received a grant from the Department of Fish and Wildlife to restore seven important wildlife water sources in the Shadow Mountains-El Mirage area northeast of Adelanto during work projects from November through April.

The seven water systems, or guzzlers, are all in total disrepair and will need total rehabilitation, including new water tanks, complete reconstruction of the water-catching aprons, sealing of those aprons, along with fencing and signage. The seven guzzlers, built in the 1950s, have been nearly completely destroyed by vandalism and time. They have had virtually no maintenance since they were built.

But there’s a cravat for the work to move forward. The club needs to recruit some new volunteers to help with the extensive labor on these projects or they might have to pass on the $19,156 grant for materials and forego the restoration project. So the group is asking for volunteers to sign up now for the projects that will take place this coming fall and winter. The group needs to make sure it has enough volunteers by August so it can begin to order the tanks and other materials it will need for the restoration work.

Anyone willing to spend a day or three working on these wildlife drinkers should contact Dave Smith with Quail Forever to get on the work sign-up sheet. His number is 760-617-3291. You can also attend the club’s next meeting, which will be held beginning 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16, at the Apple Valley Gun Club. Volunteers do not need to be members of Quail Forever.

The Stoddard Valley guzzler number A-45 after it was restored by the High Desert chapter of Quail Forever.

Water for Wildlife restores 13 guzzlers in East Mojave Desert

Water for Wildlife volunteers put the finishing touches on guzzler B226 near Flat Top Mountain in February 2016. The large concrete apron on the right collects rainwater, funneling it downhill into the storage tank on the left. Inside the crescent-shaped opening is a wildlife ramp that allows access the water inside. (Photo: Chris S. Ervin) 

By Jim Matthews
Victorville Daily Press

Cliff McDonald and his group of volunteers at Water for Wildlife announced the results of their efforts this winter and spring. In a nutshell, a total of 13 wildlife water sources (guzzlers) were restored and filled in the eastern part of the Mojave Desert over a total of four work weekends.

The volunteers invested over 1,500 hours of effort into the repairs and spent over $9,000 on materials and tools needed to complete the work, or just over an average of $725 per drinker.

Their efforts assure that a wide variety of desert birds, mammals, and even reptiles will have a permanent water supply this summer and fall, and since most desert species still need open water to survive, these man-made drinkers — often called guzzlers — are the only thing between life and death, especially during our ongoing drought.

These guzzlers all have similar features. First, they have an “apron,” which can be made of a variety of materials, that captures rain waters and funnels it into a storage tank (above or under the ground), and then access to the water is provided by a drinker box or simply an opening in the tank and ramp down to the water. Most of the guzzlers in the Mojave were made in the 1950s and 1960s by the Department of Fish and Wildlife (formerly Fish and Game), with little or no maintenance since then. While many still hold water, most are in various states of disrepair. They either hold no water or hold far less water than they could if functioning at their full potential.

Over the 10 years Water for Wildlife volunteers have been working on guzzlers in the East Mojave, they have now restored 75 guzzlers and five springs, and they repaired a number of water tanks and windmills on old cattle systems that now exclusively serve wildlife. This has involved over 7,500 volunteer hours and $50,000 in private funding.

The payoff is that over 300 species of birds and at least 45 mammal species have been documented using these important water sources, which increasingly serve as mitigation for natural water sources lost to development and ground-water pumping across the Mojave Desert.

So where’s the Sierra Club or the Humane Society in supporting this important work, making sure desert wildlife survives during this drought? Where are all the other conservation and environmental groups when it comes to actually doing things on-the-ground to help wildlife?

I’ll tell you where, they are MIA – missing in action.

They spend all their money on making sure you rejoin, fundraising, lobbists and attorneys. None of them spend a dime on actually doing anything that make a difference for wildlife. In fact, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity have repeatedly fought against guzzler construction and restoration on the basis that they are “unnatural.” Well, human groundwater pumping and housing developments are “unnatural,” and they have led to the drying up of desert springs and seeps for decades. Guzzlers and other man-made water sources act as mitigation for these other losses. But loony fringe won’t hear of that.
Even the new superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve, Todd Suess, where Water for Wildlife would have directed all of its efforts this year, threw up a bunch of bogus reasons to stop guzzler repairs on the Preserve (even after the previous two superintendents endorsed and supported McDonald’s work). So the guzzler repairs were all done on BLM lands out of the Preserve again this year.

If you care about desert wildlife, know that water is the most critical factor in their survival. The only groups assuring that desert water sources are maintained for wildlife are groups like Water for Wildlife. I give McDonald’s group a lot of publicity because it amazes me how many volunteers come from so far to work so hard for nothing. But the High Desert (Apple Valley) and Ridgecrest Quail Forever chapters (and all the other QF chapters, for that matter) do as much work as McDonald’s volunteers in the west Mojave. The Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep focuses on the bigger “guzzler” projects primarily aimed at helping desert bighorns, and the Southern California Chapter of the California Deer Association works on springs, guzzlers, and other waters all across the southern half of the state. Leon Lessica’s Desert Wildlife Unlimited’s desert water work in the Imperial Valley may be the only reason we have a healthy desert burro deer and bighorn population there.

The one thing you need to know about all of these groups is that they usually can muster up enough volunteer manpower for their projects (although more, younger volunteers are always welcome), but they frequently have to scrape and beg enough money together to get the materials they need for this work. Donations are always appreciated. With other so-call conservation or environmental groups you might get a letter or phone call after you join or donate, but the letter or call is to ask for money. With these groups, the letter or call you receive is just offering heartfelt thanks and perhaps information on where you dollars are going to be spent so you can see the results of your donation.

You can find out more information out Water for Wildlife at the group’s new website at waterforwildlifeemd.com. You can find all the local Quail Forever, Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep, and California Deer Association chapters with searches on the Internet. If you have trouble, you can e-mail me and I can help you out.

Researchers map springs across the Mojave Desert

Study of 300 desert springs will provide 'baseline' to track impact of climate change

Hydrogeologist Andy Zdon (left) and Amargosa Conservancy Executive Director Patrick Donnelly measure the water flow and collect other data at a spring in the Mojave Desert. (Photo: Marilyn Chung/The Desert Sun)

Story by Ian James
The Desert Sun

Bouncing down a rocky road in a pickup, two researchers neared their destination: an oasis of palm trees in the desert.

When the unpaved road ended in an impassible collapsed section, they stepped out and continued on foot. Andy Zdon said the approach to this spring was relatively easy. Over five months, he has often had to trek to remote spots while carrying out an exhaustive study of the natural springs across the entire Mojave Desert — an undertaking that has never before been done on this scale.

“I have been living and breathing the desert since September,” Zdon said with a smile. “I’ve done about 300 miles of walking to these springs. We’ve had to do a lot of walking.”

At each spring, Zdon, a hydrogeologist, has collected data about how much water is flowing from the ground and has analyzed the dissolved oxygen content and other properties of the water. The results will enable scientists to monitor changes in the springs, which are critical for wildlife, and document influences such as declines in groundwater levels due to pumping, shifts in flows due to weather cycles, and the drying of springs as a result of climate change.

“If you’re going to try to understand the effects of climate on a system, you need a starting point. You need a baseline, and that’s what this is doing,” Zdon said.

“You can’t even begin to understand whether you’re seeing the effects of climate change if you don’t know what the conditions were before you started looking for it, and that’s really the crux of it,” Zdon said. “You can’t manage or identify an impact if you don’t know what your starting point is.”

His study is funded through the Transition Habitat Conservancy, a nonprofit group that obtained a $190,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to carry out surveys of springs across the Mojave Desert.

Working alongside Zdon was Patrick Donnelly, a biologist and executive director of the Amargosa Conservancy, who was helping to take notes. He walked around the spring and rattled off a list of the plants he found: California fan palm (42 of them), honey mesquite, oleander, date palm and willows, among others.

Zdon spotted birds including a black-throated sparrow, house finches and white-crowned sparrow. They took down all of those details in their notes.

“The springs in the desert are really the beating heart of the desert,” Donnelly said.

Animals ranging from bighorn sheep to hummingbirds depend on the water holes. Zdon has also seen signs of other animals including mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes and badgers.

If some of the isolated springs and wetlands dry up as the climate heats up, the animals that depend on those water sources could disappear.

Data on desert springs has been collected sporadically over the years, but not in a systematic way.

“So this is really meant to be a baseline for the entire desert,” Donnelly said, “to understand the water in this desert and how we can protect it.”

During their outing in February, the two visited springs in California’s Amargosa Basin, an area rich in wildlife east of Death Valley National Park and a short drive from the Nevada border. Zdon was nearing the end of his study, which covers a total of 312 springs.

“This is number 296 since September,” Zdon said as he began his work at Chappo Spring.

Around the lush vegetation stood the ruins of a homestead abandoned years ago, an old chicken coop and the rusty skeletons of cars. Zdon said that decades ago, people grew crops and raised livestock at the spring.

Many of the springs he has surveyed are on federal lands, and his research will provide the Bureau of Land Management with information that can be used to make decisions about how different areas are managed.

Zdon walked into the thicket of palm trees to get closer to a pool of water. He pulled out an instrument to test the water, and he read off the pH, temperature and total dissolved solids while Donnelly took notes.

“Wow, this is the best water we’ve seen,” Donnelly said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good water,” Zdon replied.

But Zdon said the spring’s flow has declined dramatically from 1928, when a U.S. Geological Survey report stated that it was flowing at about 80 gallons a minute. Zdon said he had measured the flow a couple of months earlier and found the spring was discharging about 8 gallons a minute.

“Now it’s essentially just a freestanding puddle and we can’t even see flow,” Zdon said. He noted his observations about the spring on a form for the BLM: “functional, at risk, with a downward trend.”

Some springs have completely dried up elsewhere in the California desert. And while it’s challenging for researchers to differentiate between the effects of climate change, groundwater pumping and natural drought cycles, all of those influences are likely affecting springs.

“No two springs are alike,” Zdon said. At this spring, he said, the decline in flow might be related to decades of overpumping the aquifer around the nearby town of Pahrump, Nevada, as well as years of drier conditions in the area.

Zdon has been compiling the results of his research for a report that will be released later this year.

Near another spring, Donnelly pointed out ancient grinding holes in the rock, apparently left behind centuries ago by Southern Paiute Indians who depended on the spring.

He said some of the locals in the area have said there used to be a creek flowing from the spring. Now it’s a small water hole next to a cottonwood tree and a thicket of mesquite.

“I’m going to take a water sample here,” Zdon said. He collected the water in a small glass bottle and put a label on it. The sample, he said, will be sent to a lab for isotope analysis, which can indicate whether the spring water fell as rain or snow and in which area the water seeped down into the ground.

Nearby, he pointed out a pipe sticking out of the ground: a monitoring well that was installed to keep track of water levels.

The data Zdon has collected at the springs could also help conservation groups such as the Transition Habitat Conservancy target areas to protect. The Nature Conservancy also provided funding to support the research.

As he walked around one of the springs, Zdon said excitedly: “That’s a long-eared owl!” It soared off a tree branch and disappeared. Moments later, Zdon stopped to listen to a squeaky chitter. “That’s a hummingbird!”

“This is one of my favorite places on Earth,” Donnelly said. “When I need a break from the world, I come out here and put a chair underneath that cottonwood.”

Donnelly said the huge effort involved in surveying the springs will pay off by producing valuable information about the conditions on the ground today, which will in turn help people spot the influences that will affect the springs in the years to come.

“These springs are very important because they’re very much indicators of the health of our aquifer,” he said. “Because we’re dealing with such an understudied resource, you know, we’re really developing those baselines as we speak.”

Feds approve controversial remote desert solar plant near Baker

A bighorn sheep climbs the terrain of the Mojave National Preserve, about a mile northeast of the proposed site for the Soda Mountain Solar project on Tuesday, July 21 2015 near Baker. (Stan Lim)

By Jim Steinberg
The San Bernardino Sun

Over objections of environmentalists, the Obama administration on Tuesday approved a 287-megawatt solar energy plant for a remote part of the Mojave Desert.

The 1,767-acre project being developed by Bechtel Corp. is located on land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, about six miles southwest of Baker.

“Soda Mountain is another step forward toward diversifying our nation’s energy portfolio and meeting the state of California’s growing demand for renewable energy,” said BLM Director Neil Kornze.

The project is consistent with BLM’s landscape approach for the California desert, which supports careful development of renewable energy while protecting the resources and places that make the desert special, Kornze said in a statement.

“The approval of Soda Mountain Solar is a stark contradiction by the Obama administration,” Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement.

“Less than two months ago, we lauded the administration as conservation heroes after they designated national monuments in the desert to protect and connect important landscapes,” she said.

Allowing the Soda Mountain project to proceed “inhibits national park wildlife from migrating and adapting to a changing climate,” Pierno added.

The project will provide enough power for more than 86,000 homes and help toward meeting Obama’s Climate Action Plan goal of 20,000 megawatts of power derived from renewable energy project on public lands by 2020, the BLM statement said.

The agency said it spent more than three years consulting and working with a variety of federal and state partners, members of the public and others to develop a “comprehensive environmental analysis” of the Soda Mountain project area and devise a project design that preserves scenic vistas, reduces potential impacts to wildlife in the area and protects groundwater.

The agency said its approved design removes an array of solar panels originally approved north of the 15 Freeway, eliminating most of the visual effects of the project within the Mojave National Preserve.

Last year, the project was reduced from the originally proposed 2,222 acres.

The agency also said its decision ensures the project will not block future efforts to re-establish bighorn sheep movement across the interstate highway.

But Ileene Anderson, Los Angeles-based senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the massive solar array would block the “last, best linkage” for desert bighorn sheep between the Mojave National Preserve and the Soda Mountain Wilderness Study Area.

Renewable-energy generation “has to be done right,” she said.

The smaller, revised project is located in an area of disturbed lands including an active utility corridor for oil and gas pipelines, electricity transmission and communication lines and facilities, BLM said.

However, the National Parks Conservation Association says the project is in the “undeveloped” South Soda Mountain region immediately adjacent to Mojave National Preserve.

Francis Canavan, a Bechtel spokesman, acknowledged that the company doesn’t yet have an agreement to sell the electricity from the project, but he added that talks are underway with potential buyers.

Bechtel also does not have a signed agreement to use the power lines that run past the project site, which are owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Getting permission to use Los Angeles’ power lines, however, “shouldn’t be a problem,” Canavan said.

Strange Amargosa River creates series of Mojave oases

The Amargosa River winds its way through a canyon near China Ranch Date Farm on its way to Death Valley. (Las Vegas Review-Journal file photo)

By Margo Bartlett Pesek
Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Amargosa River, a strange desert stream that runs mostly underground, meanders 185 miles through the Mojave Desert. Starting in the hills near Beatty, it courses south and loops north to end up in California at Badwater in Death Valley National Park, only about 50 miles from where it began.

Where the river runs on the desert surface, it creates a series of oases with running water, wetlands, lush vegetation, even a waterfall in Amargosa Canyon, a protected 26-mile section between Shoshone, Calif., and Dumont Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area.

Set aside by law in 2009, the portion of the river through Amargosa Canyon is listed as one of America's Wild and Scenic Rivers. It is considered an area of critical environmental concern because of several species of endangered animals and plants found nowhere else. Administered by the Bureau of Land Management as the Amargosa River Natural Area, the canyon is open to public use for a wide variety of recreational pursuits compatible with species protection aims.

Off-highway driving is restricted to the high sand mountains and extensive sand seas that make up the Dumont Dunes south of the protected area. This attraction draws crowds of enthusiasts during cool-season weekends and holidays. The nearby Amargosa River Natural Area and other public lands are closed to off-roaders. Motorized vehicles must stay on roads and trails marked for their use. There are many miles of paved and unpaved tracks open to scenic touring and exploration in the area.

To reach the region from Las Vegas, head south on Interstate 15 to state Route 160, the road to Pahrump Valley. Watch for the turnoff from Route 160 onto the Old Spanish Trail Highway toward Tecopa and Shoshone, named for the famous overland route between Santa Fe, N.M., and Los Angeles used during the 1800s. You can also continue to Pahrump and turn on state Route 178 to reach Shoshone at the junction with state Route 129, then turn south to reach Tecopa. Some travelers continue south on I-15 to Baker, Calif., then turn north on state Route 129 toward Shoshone, a route often preferred by off-roaders heading for Dumont Dunes.

Humans have been living in and traveling through the Amargosa area for thousands of years. Visitors today see signs of their passing in occasional petroglyphs, grinding holes pockmarking stone in traditional camping areas, scattered rock chips from making stone points and tools and roasting pits where food was cooked in the ground. Early hunters and gatherers followed the water to find game and the natural foods that grew along the ancient stream. The Amargosa River has been cutting its way through ancient layers of stone in this area for a long time as it carved its deep little canyon.

The plants, birds and animals remain attractions drawing humans to this area, but today they come to watch, admire and photograph the creatures drawn to the oasis. Visitors walk, hike, climb, ride horses and mountain bike along trails in the area. At least 250 kinds of birds have been sighted, both residents and migrants. Many rabbits, rodents and other small creatures live there. Nighttime brings out myriad stars, several kinds of bats and nocturnal hunters such as owls, coyotes, foxes and bobcats.

The old grade of the long-defunct Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad now provides pathways to points of interest along the river, including the 6-mile Amargosa River Trail with its trailhead at China Ranch, a date farm in a side canyon south of Tecopa Hot Springs off Furnace Creek Road.

Ask at China Ranch how to reach the 4-mile round-trip Slot Canyon Trail. Allow yourself time to sample the baked goods, dates, gifts and milkshakes at China Ranch.

The Grimshaw Lake Watchable Wildlife site is near the old railroad grade, about a mile along a dirt road west of the highway halfway between Tecopa Hot Springs and the community of Tecopa. Private and public bathhouses and resorts are a draw at the hot springs. Details for hikers, climbers and rockhounds can be found at blm.gov/barstow/amargosa.