By Kate Miyamoto, Public Affairs Specialist
Zigzagging backward and forward, I follow undetectable lines on the ground, head down, eyes alert expecting any minor motion. It’s a hot August early morning in 2022, and I, in addition to 4 other Bureau of Land Management staff are walking a plot of BLM-managed public land in the California desert near El Centro. To the casual passerby, we seem looking for a lost earring, pacing the hot sand, expecting a sparkle of gold. But it’s not fashion jewelry we look for.
BLM El Centro Field Office staff are keeping track of the flat-tailed horned lizard – a sand-colored, medium-sized, flat-bodied lizard with bigger pointed scales and 8 horns on the back of the head. Its head looks like, in my viewpoint, a small variation of a dragon from the popular program, “Game of Thrones.”
The flat-tailed horned lizard is discovered in the Colorado Desert in California, Arizona, and Mexico. Its California variety is primarily in sandy desert washes and flats with sporadic greenery of creosote bush or desert scrub in main Riverside and Imperial counties. Flat-trailed horned lizards primarily consume ants, are adjusted for hot dry environments, and depend on camouflage for survival.
The lizard’s environment and abundance has actually been minimized due to human activities such as farming, advancement, and leisure usage. The types has actually been federally proposed for listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, however in 1997 Federal and state companies came together to establish a preservation arrangement and form the Flat-trailed Horned Lizard Interagency Coordinating Committee. This committee includes 13 stakeholders from Federal and state companies devoted to preservation of the lizard and its environment, consisting of the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Parks and Recreation, Arizona Department of Game and Fish and numerous Department of Defense companies.
In 2022, the BLM’s El Centro Field Office finished its yearly market tracking job for the flat-tailed horned lizard, gathering information such as age, sex, size, and weight and hereditary samples. It was the very first year the BLM gathered hereditary samples from the lizards to much better comprehend gene circulation, population connection, hereditary profile, and more. The function of the market studies is to collect info on population characteristics that can be utilized to track regional populations with time. The information collected throughout the months-long tracking effort is participated in a database and utilized by the Flat-trailed Horned Lizard Interagency Coordinating Committee.
Monitoring includes looking for, catching, and taping information on flat-tailed horned lizards in 4 long-term plots in 3 designated management locations in the lizards’ environment variety. Plots are surveyed for 10 days each and includes zig-zagging a nine-hectare plot (300 meters x 300 meters) marked into a minimum of 8 lanes to make sure 100% of the plot is surveyed every day.
To prevent the heat, the BLM staff start keeping track of around 5:30 a.m. and complete around 10 a.m. prior to ground temperature levels reach about 104° Fahrenheit and lizard activity reduces. When I show up on the August early morning, the air temperature level is hovering in the 100s, and 4 lizards have actually already been discovered.
During our look for flat-tailed horned lizards, we see other indications of life, consisting of marks in the sand showing a sidewinder rattlesnake, a desert iguana, a fringe-toed lizard, and other tracks.
After about an hour of zigzagging in the sand, we hear a shout. A flat-tailed horned lizard has actually been identified! We mark our area in the sand with a flag and make our method towards our associate. I strain my eyes to see where everybody is pointing, and lastly see the lizard set down on a rock trying to find an escape path. Flat-trailed horned lizards fast and can run under low brush or burrow rapidly into the sand, so speed is of the essence.
Peter DeJongh, biologist from the El Centro Field Office delves into action to catch the lizard, and the group tape-records its age, length, weight, sex, and a takes hereditary sample from a back claw. If the lizard is big enough, a passive incorporated transponder tag is securely injected under the lizard’s skin, much as one would finish with an animal, so that the biologists can determine this particular lizard in future studies. After a couple of minutes of taping information, the lizard is launched and vanishes into the sand.
Success! On this August early morning, 5 lizards were discovered, all of them juveniles, 3 women and 2 males.
The flat-tailed horned lizard yearly tracking job collects essential information utilized to keep track of the status and evaluate the health of the lizard. In a good year, about 35 lizards are discovered and in bad years just 5. In 2022, 26 lizards were discovered throughout 6 weeks of tracking and the BLM effectively surveyed 2 of the plots.
Flat-trailed horned lizard populations have actually been steady for the previous couple of years, and tasks like this one offer insight into the habits of these populations with time, consisting of modifications in abundance and survivability.
It’s not every day your workplace is a plot of sand, and you’re looking for a small, camouflaged lizard. But this essential field work collects essential information utilized by the BLM and its partners to help handle the flat-tailed horned lizards and their environment, and guarantee they continue to race throughout the sand
