Collaboration & Training

Raising awareness about wildlife access and mortality at livestock water developments is the first step towards developing collaborative solutions. Over the last three years, the Water for Wildlife director has given dozens of presentation on the issue at key gatherings of range and wildlife professionals, including regional and national meetings of The Wildlife Society, the Western Bat Working Group, and the Society for Range Management.

In February of 2006, the Water for Wildlife Project and the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service facilitated a special symposium on livestock water developments and wildlife at the Society for Range Managements national conference in Reno, Nevada, attended by more than 300 range managers from across the U.S. and Canada.

The Project director will continue to present scientific papers, posters, and lectures at important gatherings of livestock operators and range and wildlife managers.

Using a strategy first implemented by Water for Wildlife partner, the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, the Project held its first two "Community Build Days" in the summer of 2006 in McNeal and Flagstaff Arizona, where local conservation groups, ranchers, and agency personnel joined forces to build wildlife escape structures for distribution to private lands ranchers. Participants learned about the conservation of bats and other wildlife and constructed more than 200 wildlife escape structures which were distributed to local ranchers for installation in their livestock troughs.

These one-day hands-on training sessions are designed for ranchers and agency range and wildlife managers and include classroom instruction and a field session covering agency water development policy and standards, wildlife escape structure design, construction, and placement, and bracing and fencing methods that meet livestock and wildlife management objectives.

If you are interested in attending an upcoming training or helping to organize a build-day, training, presentation, or adopt-an-allotment for your area or organization, contact the Project Director, Dan Taylor, at dtaylor@batcon.org.