Giant Kangaroo Rat | Notes from the Field

[@JW4REnvironment]

There are some wonderful rock paintings created by the First Americans as well! A beautiful area with incredible bird life during migration. Not to mention the San Andreas Fault right there!

[@jago76]

Several years ago, i volunteered at Carrizo Plain to remove fences to allow the Pronghorn Antelope to move freely. How is the Pronghorn population faring with the drought?

[@ConservecaOrg]

Pronghorn numbers were down before the drought and will likely continue to decline. Water access is a big issue. CDFW is leading (with BLM and TNC’s help - as Managing Partners) to identify ways to add more water across the 300,000 acres of protected land at the Carrizo and to test whether this can help pronghorn populations stabilize and eventually begin to increase. Pronghorn management at the Carrizo has been difficult. But the work volunteers did to retrofit and/or remove fences has been a huge help for their movement across the Valley.

[@stevenclark7061]

There are two large solar PV power plants located in the Carrizo Plain, and they were built to minimize impacts to the GKR and actually assist the continued survival and thriving of the GKR in this area! A true enviro success story!

[@JW4REnvironment]

Great to hear the impacts on wildlife were addressed and minimized!

[@janeorbuch3834]

Except they fenced the solar fields and prevented large mammals like pronghorn from grazing and moving about.

[@stevenclark7061]

@@janeorbuch3834 Both projects include specially-designed fencing that deliberately allow animals of a certain size to pass through, while large ones can not. Both projects went through extensive environmental reviews during their permitting processes and reached agreement with both the County of San Luis Obispo and third party environmental groups, like the Center for Biological Diversity, on final permit conditions. The final Conditional Use Permits included literally hundreds of conditions and restrictions, which included dozens of monitoring and reporting requirements, covering all conceivable environmental impacts from the construction and operation of the solar projects. Additionally, the California Valley Solar Ranch Project consists of a number of geographically separated solar arrays, each individually fenced. Larger animals can easily move around the individual arrays and are not blocked, except for going inside a fenced solar array, which could be bad for both the animals and the solar equipment.

[@666Kazekage666]

I hope those animals are doing better after the rains we got

[@usenamenotallowed]

The eco freaks will just find another reason to blame humans for everything. No rain and rats die? Humans caused it. Normal rain and rats die? Humans caused it. Extra rain and rats die? Humans caused it. Sunspots and rats die? Well they'll just find a way to blame humans for that too.