|
October 5, 2009
ForestWatch Volunteers Remove
Abandoned Fencing in Carrizo Plain
Their Efforts
Allow Pronghorn Antelope to Roam a Little More Freely Across the
Carrizo Plain National Monument
Last weekend, fourteen volunteers gathered on the Carrizo Plain
as part of an ongoing effort to restore pronghorn antelope on
the 200,000-acre national monument. After putting in a full
day's work, they had removed more than 6,000 feet of fencing,
giving pronghorn a little more room to roam across this vast
wild landscape.
Pronghorn on the Carrizo Plain.
Photo © Chuck Graham
Pronghorn are the second-fastest
land mammals on the planet, and can sustain high speeds longer
than cheetahs -- up to fifty miles per hour or more. Although
built for speed, they are very poor jumpers, and fencing
restricts their movement and makes them more vulnerable to
injuries and predators.
For the last ten years, a campaign
to remove or modify fencing has intensified, with a goal of
restoring free pronghorn movement across the Carrizo. As of
2008, nonprofit organizations and state and federal agencies
have worked together to remove or modify more than 150 miles of
abandoned fencing. Several weekends each year, volunteers
unfasten the barbed wire from fence posts, coil up the wire,
remove the fence posts with a special tool, and haul all the
materials to a nearby trailer for transport. Usually, the old
fence materials must be carried long distances to the nearest
road - driving vehicles off road could crush underground burrows
for kangaroo rats, leopard lizards, kit foxes, and other rare
wildlife. Short of full removal, fences can also be modified by
removing the bottom barbed wire and/or installing a barbless
bottom wire so that pronghorn can sneak under the fence.
BEFORE: one mile of barbed wire
fencing fades into the distance.
AFTER: all that remains are a
few wooden fence posts...and miles of open country.
This latest project focused on more than a mile of old fencing
on the Panorama Ranch, with the Temblor Range as our backdrop.
The ranch was purchased by the California Department of Fish &
Game in the 1980s to protect wildlife habitat, and the abandoned
fencing is no longer needed.
Historically present in the
Carrizo Plain, pronghorn were exterminated from the area in the
early 1900s. In the late 1980s, the California Department of
Fish & Game gathered more than two hundred pronghorn from
northeastern California and released them into the Carrizo
Plain, and the area currently supports the only population of
free-ranging pronghorn in Central California. As of 2007, the
Carrizo herd consisted of 84 pronghorn - the goal is to bring
the population up to at least 300 antelope.
The defencing project was a joint
effort between the Sierra Club, ForestWatch, Desert Survivors,
and the California Department of Fish & Game. Thanks to all of
our volunteers for giving pronghorn the freedom to roam!
The October 2009 defencing crew gathers after a long day's work. |
