Bishop Drinker Projects 2019

ilovesprig

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Hats off to Cliff McDonald and his crew....


June 11, 2019
Society for the Protection and Care of Wildlife
Report on Water for Wildlife Project
May 6th thru 13th, 2019
Bishop/Benton, BLM and Inyo National Forest lands
Hwy 395, Millpond Campground, Bishop, CA
Project #03-2019
Another great project in the mountains around Bishop, CA. My sign in sheets show a total of 38 volunteers that showed up to put in their time to help provide water to the wildlife. Some volunteers stayed the entire 7 days others were only able to stay one or two days, but it all worked out and the hard work the volunteers put in completed the maintenance needed on six wildlife drinkers.
Three of the drinkers were the normal concrete apron with the underground fiberglass tank, the other three were the fiberglass parabolic design.
Two of the three concrete drinkers were designed with an offsite drinker, which made these available to the big game in the area, (deer, bears, sheep, elk), plus all the other wildlife. The three parabolic drinkers made water available to both the large and small wildlife in the area.
What the volunteers accomplished: Concrete Drinkers were totally pumped out, debris was removed and then filled with fresh water. The cracks in the aprons were ground out and mortared, the curbs were repaired on all three and then each were coated with the Ames coating. This maintenance work took 210 volunteer hours to complete.
Repairing one of the off site drinker boxes.
Parabolic Drinkers were totally pumped out, debris removed then filled with fresh water. One of the drinkers had three extra 8x10 aluminum water collection boxes that needed to be raised 18 inches above ground to keep debris from building up inside the boxes. The maintenance work on these three drinkers took 185 volunteer hours.



PARABOLIC DRINKER

The volunteers put in a total of 395 hours to complete this project. Now, these hours do not include travel time of 1 to 1 1/2hrs each way to and from the work site each day, travel time from volunteer residence to camp site, in some cases over 600 miles round trip, hours setting up and tearing down the camp site, hours our cook Judy spent preparing our meals. You could easily double or triple the hours.
I would like to thank the Mule Deer Foundation for providing the materials, concrete, mortar, Ames coating, etc., and the CA Deer Association for making sure we have all the equipment needed to complete these jobs. Also, thanks to Sheena with the BLM and Kary with the USFS for all their help in organizing the work projects, plus putting in several hours of labor. The Eastern Sierra 4 Wheel Drive Club for their help, plus all the locals from Bishop and surrounding area. Special kudos to Judy (cook) who had the hot coffee ready each morning and prepared served delicious hot meals. Doug Brown for furnishing us with great campsites at Millpond Campground. Susan, the campground manager, for making us feel welcome. THANK YOU SO MUCH to ALL!!!!!
The volunteers have completed 194 drinkers to date. It has taken 15 years, several thousand dollars and thousands of volunteer hours to achieve this. Of the 194, my best guess would be to say that 80 of these drinkers were not furnishing any water to the wildlife and were in dire need of maintenance. All the others, by performing the maintenance work, the volunteers have increased the drinkers efficiency anywhere from 50 to 100 percent. Just by pumping out the tanks and removing 60-70 years of muck increased their holding capacity of most tanks by 50 percent.
We have finished all the drinkers that the powers to be allowed us to maintain in the East Mojave. There are several more on the Mojave National Preserve that need to be maintained but the archeologist stopped our work because of concerns that these drinkers might be historic. This stoppage happened three years ago and was supposed to be for a short period of time. The MNP needed to assess each guzzler for their historic value. As of today NO such assessments have been conducted. So until these great minds come together and figure out a plan, all work has been halted on the MNP. However there are several more drinkers that need maintenance around Bishop and we will plan accordingly.
As of today I have no projects planned for the East Mojave in 2020, but we will conduct another Bishop project in May of 2020. If anyone has an idea for a wildlife project in the East Mojave for next year, please let me know.
I will send out a yearly report by the end of the month.
Thank you all for making this Bishop project a great success.
Best regards,
Cliff McDonald President & Project Coordinator Society for the Protection and Care of Wildlife 7604494820 [email protected]
 
Super rad. Cliff has quite the passion. Talked to him close to 15 years ago and it does not seem that he has slowed down much.
 
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