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Download larger image - Fort Hood soldiers train aboard an Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV). Conservation work done in cooperation with the military has led to an increase in training capacity on the base while rare species have flourished. Photo © Gil Eckrich Learn More About |
By Jay Harrod
One doesn’t normally think of armored vehicles as protectors of endangered songbirds, but at Fort Hood outside Killeen, a successful relationship between the U.S. Army and The Nature Conservancy is something to sing about.
The two sides began their relationship in 1993, when the military was working to comply with a federal mandate to protect and enhance habitat on base for two endangered songbirds, the golden-cheeked warbler and black-capped vireo.
The Conservancy is employing a variety of techniques to restore habitat for the songbirds and to increase populations. Trapping programs targeting parasitic cowbirds have protected nesting warblers and vireos and a coordinated prescribed fire program has greatly improved habitat for both species. Prescribed fires maintain the shrubby state beneficial to nesting birds while also reducing fuel loads that can lead to catastrophic wildfires—a particular concern on land used for heavy ordnance training.
All that work is paying off, and the birds are responding – since 1993, warbler population trends have continued to increase and known vireo pairs have gone from just 85 to an estimated 3,000 today.
Since the implementation of a formal Cooperative Agreement in 1997, The Nature Conservancy, has helped identify where birds are nesting and raising their young. Data provided by that work was used by the Army Corps of Engineers Research Lab (CERL) to prove there was no difference in how the birds were doing in areas with and without training restrictions. As a result, federal restrictions were lifted on more than 9,500 acres of the base during breeding season, greatly increasing the training capacity of Fort Hood soldiers. The land that remains under resshartriction is mostly unsuitable for mechanized training because it’s too steep or in close proximity to public recreation areas.
“In this most unique partnership providing for heavy artillery training within endangered bird breeding territory, we have simply been amazed by the professionalism of the Fort Hood teams, at all levels,” said Laura Huffman, state director for The Nature Conservancy of Texas. “We’ve learned some valuable lessons about what cooperation can make possible.”
Since protecting migrating species requires participation at both ends of the bird’s range, Conservancy scientists are also working with biologists in the five Central American countries where the warblers and vireos are known to spend their winters.
For more information on the Fort Hood Project or other Conservancy work, visit nature.org/texas.
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