Don Carter, with the Pima County Natural Resources Department, applies duct tape to stabilize observation tubes on a newly created burrow on the Canoa Ranch, just south of Green Valley. The observation tubes will have cameras. Carter and other volunteers helped set up owl-release sites on the ranch.

Mamta Popat

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Arizona's burrowing owls aren't an endangered species, and Greg Clark would like them to stay that way.

With volunteer labor, borrowed backhoes, buried plastic 5-gallon buckets and PVC pipe, he's been doing his best to build artificial burrows for the little owls.

Clark works with Wild at Heart, a Cave Creek-based not-for-profit that has led the effort to move hundreds of the tiny owls displaced from agricultural land being developed in Maricopa County to artificial burrows installed throughout the rest of the state.

He estimates volunteers have dug nearly 2,000 burrows, roughly equally divided between the northern, southern, eastern and western parts of the state. Some are for transplanted Maricopa County owls; others may be used by migrating populations.

The group pioneered the artificial burrow program, and Clark says it's successful and that there are hundreds of owls living in burrows installed through the program. But he said there is still more to learn.

"It will take 15 to 20 years for us to see everything that could go wrong with relocation," says Clark.

For instance, he says the birds reject burrows that are located too close to trees, saguaros or other structures that can be used by the predatory birds that prey on burrowing owls.

By starting now, before the animals are in desperate straits, he says the artificial burrow and relocation program can be perfected and a future endangered species listing avoided.

He says the insect and rodent-eating tiny owl is losing habitat at an alarming rate, particularly in Maricopa County, where the remaining agricultural land is being turned into home sites and commercial property.

The burrowing owls, found across most of the southern United States and down into Mexico and Central America, are running into the same problem all over the United States. But Clark says the problem in the Phoenix area is particularly significant because, "Arizona is as big as France (and) Maricopa County is the largest agricultural county in Arizona because of the Salt River Project. We have all this vast acreage. At the same time we've been treating anything that digs a hole in the ground as a pest — trapping, shooting and poisoning."

He says Maricopa County alone is losing an average of 1,200 acres of this land a month to development.

"A good percentage of that is burrowing owl habitat," says Clark.

The owls can't dig their own burrows, instead taking over those of ground squirrels, gophers, prairie dogs and other underground tunnel dwellers, says Game & Fish urban wild-life specialist Elissa Ostergaard.

Burrowing owls could use the friends, as they have a habit that may mess up any stuffed animal deals.

"They collect stinky things and put them in front of their burrows," says Ostergaard. "They're famous for collecting dog feces, coyote feces, horse feces — crap hoarding."

She says there's a theory that they may be trying to attract insects, one of their favorite foods.

Clark said he believes they do it to mask the scent of eggs in their burrows, to fool predators.

They have another, more endearing trait, says Alex Jácome, of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, a leading sponsor of the relocation program in Southern Arizona, from Marana throughout metro Tucson and south to Canoa Ranch and Elgin.

Jácome calls them "an ecological exterminator. They're pretty voracious little creatures."

That, in part, explains their preference for the edges of fields, where wildlife biologists say they find a lush supply of insects and a lack of habitat for their predators — raptors.

Clark says working with Arizona Game & Fish Department, the builders and other private- and public-sector organizations today is preferable to relying on a risky save by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) decades from now.

"We're not crying wolf," says Clark, "because this bird is not even close to being listed (as endangered). But wildlife groups and agencies should move toward a mechanism that can be engaged early. I believe it's economic and that the community will accept the efforts if you intervene early. If you wait until the ESA, it upsets everybody. It's expensive and people feel their rights are stepped on.

"Wouldn't it have been better if the research had been done 20 years earlier?"