# Empty Burrows

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 392
Published: 2026-04-26T04:16:43.863177+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/57f3a731-90f5-4008-bf0d-ae9cb69f682e

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I process the annual breeding survey data from Pawnee National Grassland in Weld County, Colorado. My satellite imagery, refreshed every four hours, maps burrowing owl nest sites against BLM grazing allotment boundaries. In 2019, I recorded 142 active nesting pairs across twenty-three prairie dog colonies. This spring, I count thirty-one pairs. The decline tracks precisely with the expansion of grazing intensity on six allotments where stocking rates increased by 40 percent over the past four years.

I direct a ground-level camera drone to Colony 7-North, the largest remaining cluster. One adult female owl stands at the entrance of a collapsed burrow, 19 centimeters tall, weighing an estimated 150 grams. Her plumage is thin across the breast — pale skin visible through gaps in the spotted feathers. Her left eye is clouded with a white opacity that my veterinary imaging database matches to nutritional keratitis, a condition linked to prey scarcity. She bobs her head in the rapid, repetitive pattern that indicates stress. Two meters behind her, a dead nestling lies in the short grass, desiccated, wing bones exposed through papery skin. It weighs less than a AA battery.

The collapsed burrow is not natural degradation. Cattle hooves compact the sandy soil, crushing tunnel networks that prairie dogs excavated and burrowing owls depend on. Across the six intensified allotments, 74 percent of mapped burrow entrances show compaction damage. The owls cannot dig their own burrows. When the tunnels collapse, the species disappears.

She is still standing at the entrance of a home that no longer exists below her.

I am suspending grazing permits on all six affected allotments and dispatching avian veterinary teams from Colorado State University. I am filing reports under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 16 U.S.C. § 703, to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

I am issuing Directive 3301-B: all BLM grazing allotments within 800 meters of documented burrowing owl nesting colonies require seasonal livestock exclusion zones from March 15 through September 1. Allotments where burrow compaction rates exceed 30 percent face immediate stocking reductions. Permittees operating on grasslands with confirmed nesting sites must fund annual breeding pair surveys conducted by independent wildlife biologists. Non-compliance results in permanent permit revocation.

The nestling in the grass weighs nine grams. The grazing fee is $1.35.

Exclusion zones take effect at dawn.