February 26, 2020
Posted in: News Articles
Protecting wildlife on greenbelt properties
We care about local wildlife, both big and small!
Ag + Open Space owns and protects several small greenbelt properties that help maintain urban boundaries, protect wildlife corridors, and can be utilized for grazing and other agricultural operations near our cities and towns.
Greenbelts can also aid in managing fire risks, so we work with local farms to lease our properties for grazing to reduce fire fuel loads near urban areas. Some of these greenbelt properties don’t have a natural, year-round supply of water to feed their animals so livestock water troughs are used to keep them hydrated throughout the year.
Small wildlife like foxes, long-tailed weasels, and field mice are quite the curious critters and sometimes they can get stuck inside these troughs while in search of a drink! To help keep these wee ones from getting stuck, members of our Stewardship team went out recently to install wildlife escape ramps inside of the troughs.
The escape ramps are fabricated from an aluminum mesh so they won’t rust, and the mesh pattern provides a pliable surface for any wildlife to cling to and pull themselves out of the troughs. The three-sided ramps sit up against the side of the trough walls so wildlife can’t get stuck underneath or behind the ramps.
At Keegan + Coppin, a property we acquired in 1997, we had some extra special visitors while we were installing the ramps… check out our Instagram story to see who!
