Cross Bar Management Area – Wildlife Survey Week

During the week of June 17, 2024, Oklahoma Field Office Wildlife Biologist Brian Dickerson and American Conservation Experience (ACE) intern Matthew Jackson traveled to the Cross Bar Management Area just north of Amarillo, Texas. It is the only surface management tract within the three-state area covered by the Oklahoma Field Office (OFO). Upon arrival they were joined by Cross Bar ACE intern Connor Stamps who along with Cross Bar Recreation Specialist Adrian Escobar had prepped six Wildlife Acoustics SM4BAT-FS detectors in an effort to participate in the North America (NA) Bat Monitoring Program. They immediately got to work by ensuring all six detectors were programmed to record that evening for a program required four-night survey effort. In coordination with NA Bat program specialists, the six detectors were placed in six different quadrants covering two NA Bat survey cell areas. This data not only will contribute knowledge about the presence of species on the Cross Bar for management purposes but also contribute to scientific studies being conducted at a national level. The Tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) is of specific interest as an Endangered Species Act “Proposed Endangered” listed species occurring in the area.

While the bat recorders did their thing at night, Brian, Matt, and Connor got to work during the day picking up on a Texas horned lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) three-year survey effort by Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD). The Texas horned lizard (THL) is a state listed “threatened” species and in a statewide effort to gain knowledge of the status of the lizard in the state TPWD conducted official survey routes in designated areas. One of those routes was on the Cross Bar Management Area where for three consecutive years (2020, 2021, 2022) biologists found more THL than on any other survey route being conducted in the state. The survey effort concluded for TPWD in 2022, but as the Cross Bar transitions into a Special Recreation Management Area with efforts moving forward to have a public access road complete with parking lots and trail use, the OFO Resources group decided to pick the survey effort up from TPWD in order to monitor numbers of the THL going forward. During the 2024 survey, the field crew was able to find 33 THLs which according to TPWD Herpetologist Paul Crump is a new record for these survey routes statewide.

Another effort the crew set out to accomplish was to establish a Riparian Area monitoring protocol.  Previous efforts were wholly qualitative and going forward the OFO Wildlife Biologist will be collecting data adapted from TPWD’s guidance document, Managing Riparian Habitats for Wildlife. There are approximately six miles of riparian corridor within the Cross Bar and future surveys will monitor two miles per season on a rotation to detect changes in riparian habitat.  The 2024 survey effort took place along the southern leg of West Amarillo Creek where it was observed that the riparian area was in reference-like condition for the area.  While the list of flora and fauna observed was numerous, the crew was treated to an observation of a pair of Red-headed woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) towards the end of the survey transect, which is a Bird of Conservation Concern in the area.