Snatching baby birds from bulldozers

Like many residents of northwest Corrales, Gail Tunberg had always enjoyed walking her dogs in the wide arroyo that snakes under Highway 528 up into Rio Rancho. For decades it was a place of coyote dens, sprinting jackrabbits, nighthawks overhead and Burrowing Owls below—not to mention four-wheelers, litter, tires, and dumped appliances. Many people let their dogs off leash to bound joyfully as nature intended. Over the last decade, however, as housing and population have blossomed in Rio Rancho, the owls and hawks have vanished. Erosion has washed so much silt and sediment down the arroyo into a concrete channel that Corrales Road fl oods regularly during heavy rains, initiating a series of sediment-control projects by the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority (SSCAFCA), stretching from the bosque to the Rio Rancho border. Earthmoving equipment is now the dominant sign of life in the Lower Montoyas Arroyo, which means dog walkers and equestrians spent the summer dodging dump trucks, boulders, cement pipes, and the large sediment ponds that form after it rains. SSCAFCA has rapidly turned the wild and woolly arroyo with its shifting banks into something more tightly engineered, with manmade islands, graded banks planted with vegetation, and a series of terraces and dams to impound storm water and catch debris. Tunberg, like many area residents, was hardly thrilled by the transformation. But as a retired wildlife biologist, she saw something that was even more disturbing. Who else would recognize the small depressions in the highest banks of the arroyo as the nesting burrows of the tiny Bank Swallow? Known elsewhere in the world as the Sand Martin, this smallest of swallows digs dozens of burrows in sandy or loamy vertical banks, away from ground predators. The male uses his beak, wings, and feet to tunnel, and the female comes along later and hovers in front of the colony, choosing her mate and the burrow where she will construct a flat nest.

Bank Swallow colonies can be huge— thousands of burrows—but this smattering along the Montoyas Arroyo is, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Migratory Bird office, the largest of only a few colonies remaining in New Mexico. As suitable nesting habitat disappears, the bird is in steep decline in the Land of Enchantment and is listed as a species of conservation concern with the state Department of Game & Fish. And Tunberg, who spent her career with the U.S. Forest Service, knew that disturbing a colony during nesting season is a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. She contacted Dave Kreuper, the migratory bird specialist at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, a fellow Corraleño. She had looked up SSCAFCA’s environmental analysis for the project online, and discovered that the agency knew about the Bank Swallow colonies and had recommended that they not be disturbed. But as the project ran late and the swallows arrived, no mitigation actions had been considered. “The berms that SSCAFCA recently constructed in the channel diverted flow and aimed it directly at the bank swallow colony,” Tunberg wrote to her Village Council representative on July 9. “The rains last night provided enough water velocity to undercut the bank they are nesting in and sloughed off into the channel. I estimate at least 30% of the colony was destroyed last night.” The mayor of Corrales, Scott Kominiak, was dismissive in learning of the loss. “I have more important things to worry about and think that protecting people is more important than protecting an arroyo,” he responded by email. “I am sure the abundant bank swallows will find a nice new place to live.” Kreuper, however, arranged to meet with Tunberg on a Sunday, when crews were not working in the arroyo, and took photos of baby birds in the nests. He called a meeting with SSCAFCA and brought along the enforcement arm of Fish & Wildlife and a representative from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which provided funding for the project. Within one day, SSCAFCA had developed a plan to prevent colony destruction—and further enforcement action. Rock barriers would be installed to divert water away from the banks. The Fish & Wildlife Service, which enforces the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, signed off on the measure. According to an email reporting this outcome to Tunberg, Kreuper said SSCAFCA proved “very eager to work on this and didn’t even blink an eye when we proposed putting in rock barriers.” He noted that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects birds and eggs, but not habitat—so it was fortuitous that all parties were in agreement to help the birds. “Because they were willing to do the right thing, the agency [Fish & Wildlife] was willing to work with them,” Tunberg concluded. “Too often the impression from developers is the environmental side is there to thwart them and impede development. But SSCFCA knew what they did was wrong. They should not be allowed to get away with blatant destruction of species protected by federal law. They didn’t care enough to have a wildlife biologist on site helping lay out the project. Had they done so, the colony could have been protected and flood control would not have been hampered.” SSCAFCA, for its part, counters that they were aware of the risk, and scheduled the project specifically to avoid disturbing nesting Bank Swallows. The nests were not there when earthwork was completed on that section in early summer, said Dave Gatterman, environmental services director for SSCAFCA. The agency learned of the nests only when contacted by Fish & Wildlife, and agreed immediately to protect the birds. “The idea is to create habitat,” Gatterman said of the flood-control project, known as the Lower Montoyas Water Quality Feature. He said SSCAFCA had wanted to try designing a major flood-control project that would leave the arroyo looking better, rather than lining it in concrete. “We strive to be environmentally friendly and also do flood control, which is our mandate. “With any luck, we’ll also get a better return on the wildlife” once the vegetation comes in, he added. But what would have become of the Bank Swallows if no one had stepped in? Tunberg notes that the massive expansion of the Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho destroyed a major Bank Swallow colony in the Arroyo Calabacillas last spring. Although the developer was ordered to compensate for destroying habitat, what they did was plant landscaping in the road median, she says. “Plants between traffic lanes is not habitat for Bank Swallows.” That should have served as a lesson, Tunberg said as we walked in the Montoyas Arroyo one Sunday. “And here we see the result.” She points out another animal in serious decline in New Mexico, the Woodhouse’s Toad, which used to breed at the outflow of a box culvert that was transformed by the recent work in the arroyo. “I can’t imagine they survived all the digging,” she said sadly. With amphibian and bird populations under stress worldwide because of climate change and loss of habitat, laws designed to protect species—when they exist— work only as well as can be enforced. Nesting colonies are indeed destroyed by development, said Gail Garber, director of Hawks Aloft, and basically “the responsibility is on people to be observant.” Hawks Aloft, which does advocacy, research, and rescue of wild birds, hardly ever gets calls anymore about threats to Burrowing Owls—once a delight to walkers in the Montoyas Arroyo—because so few remain in populated areas, Garber noted. And since politics determines which animals get legal protection, government cannot be counted on to save species from extinction, she said. Tunberg agrees. “The loss of Bank Swallows, Burrowing Owls, Nighthawks, Woodhouse’s Toads … the list goes on … is an unfortunate consequence of human development,” she wrote in an email. “Unless concerned citizens get involved, many more wildlife species, and more of our favorite walking places will disappear forever.”

In her 28-year career at the Forest Service, Tunberg weathered the storms of political fashion. Now that she is retired, she can give free rein to her passions: painting and photographing wildlife, and advocating for wild things that can’t speak for themselves. “Sometimes I feel like the Lorax,” she says of the Dr. Seuss character, waving her hands. “I speak for the trees!” With husband John, who spent his career with the U.S. Soil & Conservation Service, Gail devotes her energies to preserving the rural character of Corrales, which is rapidly giving way to suburbanization. Demonizing development is not the objective, Tunberg says. “Many people, such as the mayor of Corrales, do not understand that there can be a balance between what humans want and what wildlife need.” Development is, after all, simply the growth in people seeking New Mexico’s wide-open spaces and natural beauty—us, in other words. Kreuper, of the Fish & Wildlife Service, sees the tale as an interesting lesson in what is at stake as New Mexico’s population grows. “It shows how everything is interconnected,” he said. “The arroyo is part of a watershed that impacts thousands of people, wildlife is involved, and everything we do has ramifications and repercussions.” The very qualities that make New Mexico a haven for wildlife and retirees rely on the vigilance of a few wide-awake citizens who, like Tunberg, still worry about the birds and speak for the trees.