Division of Bird Habitat Conservation

Birdscapes: News from International Habitat Conservation Partnerships

How To

An Alternative to Reservoir Construction
by Kevin Kraai and Jeffrey Gunnels, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

It is no secret in Texas that Tarrant County's Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is growing exponentially and that having an adequate water supply is of mounting concern. Constructing a new reservoir is the usual line of defense as insufficient water supplies become an issue, but the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (Department) and Tarrant Regional Water District (Water District) have a better idea.

The Trinity River watershed is a major source of water for county residents. Estimates indicate that 60 to 65 percent of the water used by residents is returned to the river. Down stream, located just below the Richland Chambers Reservoir, 80 miles southeast of Dallas in the river's floodplain, is the Richland Creek Wildlife Management Area. The management area contains 14,000 acres of mitigation land managed by the Department. In 1996, the Department and the Water District signed an agreement to allow the construction of 2,300 acres of wetlands on the mitigation lands.

Now, here is where the "better idea" comes in. As an alternative to constructing a new reservoir, the Department and the Water District initiated a $22 million raw-water-treatment wetlands project that will reclaim not only used water but also wildlife habitat. Raw water from the river will be pumped into a complex of shallow-water impoundments, each containing a native wetland plant community to facilitate water filtration and purification. On the outflow end of the complex, cleansed water will be returned to the reservoir.

A 1992 pilot project demonstrated that water-treatment wetlands improved water quality, removing 99 percent of the suspended solids, 82 percent of the nitrogen, and 72 percent of the phosphorus. This initial success led to a field-scale phase, which began in July 2000: A pump station was installed on the river, a pipeline was run to the management area, and a sedimentation pond and four wetland cells totaling 274 acres were constructed. Construction of the remaining 2,000 acres of wetlands will begin after monitoring has been completed of the field-scale phase's efficiency.

Even when the treatment system is not operating for water-quality improvement, water must be delivered to the wetlands to maintain the integrity of the aquatic plant communities. This project will also provide water for the management of an existing 580-acre wetland project developed cooperatively with Ducks Unlimited, Inc., in 1989. Currently, the 580 acres rely heavily on runoff from rainfall or flooding of the Trinity River for its water supplies. Neither source is reliable. The dependable source of water provided by the water-treatment project and the value of the constructed wetlands to migrating and wintering waterbirds were cardinal to the Department's involvement.

A state wildlife agency and a regional water district are showing how the development of water-treatment facilities such as this one can help to reduce the need for reservoir construction and subsequent loss of habitat. Equally important, they are demonstrating how the creation of wildlife habitat can also help to meet the water-supply needs of society.

For more information, contact Jeffrey Gunnels or Hayden Haucke, Richland Creek Wildlife Management Area, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 1670 FM 488, Streetman, Texas 75859, (903) 389-7080, rcwma@airmail.net.

Tracking Changes, Charting the Future
by Dawn Browne, Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

Loss and degradation of forested habitat in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) is well documented: 80-90 percent of this system is highly altered, either by removal of native vegetation or changes to hydrology. The result is a litany of problems for species dependent upon forested wetland ecosystems.

Ecologically healthy forests provide crucial natural functions such as water quality improvement, flood storage, air purification, erosion control, and wildlife habitat. Conservation partners are working to restore bottomland hardwood forests throughout the MAV; however, just knowing that habitat has been lost is not enough. Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of forest cover is crucial to prioritizing restoration activities. The geographic information system (GIS) staff at Ducks Unlimited, Inc.'s, Southern Regional Office is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to evaluate forested-area change from 1972 to 2001 in the MAV. Their work supports the goals delineated in the Forest Service's Large-scale Watershed Restoration Program: Restoring the Delta Initiative.

Historically, the clearing of forested areas in the Delta occurred progressively from the highest and driest to lowest and wettest areas of the landscape. By identifying the most recently cleared forests, we are locating areas that were sufficiently flood-prone to escape clearing for many decades and only recently became viable candidates for conversion to agriculture. To characterize this gradual clearing process, images from three different Landsat satellites have been used to identify the extent of forest cover at 10-year intervals from 1972 to present.

Digital change detection is performed using ERDAS Imagine 8.5 and ArcView Image Analysis image processing software. The final product is a GIS data set with a 5-acre minimum-mapping unit that isolates areas that were at one time mature forest and have now been converted to agriculture or other types of land use. This information leads to a clearer understanding of the historical distribution of forest cover in the MAV. It also will assist in directing reforestation activities on locations across the landscape that have the maximum benefit for reducing habitat fragmentation and improving water quality.

The forest-change information is being used with other GIS data layers, such as the MAV Soil Moisture Index, which was completed in July 2001 with support from the Forest Service. These integrated data sources are the foundation of a powerful MAV restoration priority model and provide additional information that can be used in the forest breeding bird model developed by Dan Twedt, U.S. Geological Survey, and Bill Uihlein and Blaine Elliot, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A significant ancillary benefit to this project is the quantification of tree planting programs implemented in the MAV since 1972. With satellite remote sensing and GIS technology, we are now able to see the effects of conservation programs such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service Wetland Reserve Program on a landscape scale.

Tracking changes in forest cover will assist conservation partners in prioritizing habitat restoration activities. In the long term, wildlife and humans are the benefactors.

For more information contact Jerry Holden, GIS Manager, Ducks Unlimited, Inc., Southern Regional Office, 193 Business Park Drive, Suite E, Ridgeland, Mississippi 39157, (601) 956-1936, jholden@ducks.org.

Hopping Down the Road to Recovery
by Miriam Morrill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

You could say this is a "fluff" story—and it is. . .in the most profound way. It's about a fluffy rabbit at the brink of extinction.

At one time, the riparian brush rabbit was common in the dense forests of wild roses, grapes, and blackberries that bordered the San Joaquin and Stanislaus Rivers in California's Central Valley. Today, less than 10 percent of its habitat remains intact amid relentless urban and agricultural development and less than 250 rabbits remain in the wild—the species is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Capitalizing on a natural behavior for a long-term solution to bolster the rabbit's population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began a 5-year, captive-breeding program in 2001. The plan is to breed approximately 80 rabbits a year and introduce three additional populations into restored habitat areas at state and federal wildlife refuges.

But many farmers and other landowners in the Valley—California's breadbasket—are worried that bunny-protection measures might interfere with farming practices. In response to their concerns, we in the Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office initiated an outreach program that fit hand-in-glove with recovery efforts.

We made presentations about the rabbit's plight at elementary schools, hoping that the children's concern would inspire parents to become involved in rabbit conservation. We also sponsored an art contest to build the children's understanding of and appreciation for the bunny. An exceptional drawing by 10-year-old Christopher Muñoz, who attends Sisk School in Salida, portrayed a unique behavior of the rabbit: the ability to climb trees and shrubs to escape flood waters.

To draw adults' attention to the rabbit's dire situation, we coordinated a media event that brought Northern California television and newspaper reporters to the captive-breeding site. It wasn't difficult interesting the media in a tour of the facility, considering it was the week before Easter and the captive-breeding program is a first for an endangered California mammal. The event resulted in several positive news stories.

To tie together all of the aspects of the recovery program (captive breeding, habitat protection, and species reintroduction) and to reach all ages simultaneously, we developed the first annual Riparian Brush Rabbit Festival. The festival attracted some 350 people to Caswell Memorial State Park south of Sacramento, home to one of the last of the rabbit's wild populations. We had printed information available, offered interactive games for kids, led ecosystem-related tours, made presentations—all starring the rabbit.

The coordination between recovery biologists and outreach professionals has yielded unexpected bonuses. The news coverage prompted numerous calls to biologists relating rabbit sightings, which could lead to discovery of other populations. Especially gratifying was the response of a landowner who was an art-contest judge at the festival. She now wants to protect her land in perpetuity as habitat for the rabbit.

With good science, the help of our neighbors, and a little luck, in the next 5 years, we may all see the riparian brush rabbit hopping down the road to recovery.

For more information, contact Miriam Morrill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, 2800 Cottage Way, Room W-2605, Sacramento, California 95825, (916) 414-6600, miriam_morrill@fws.gov.