These last six months have been a demonstration of the importance of water to wildlife. Wild animals need a source of natural water, such as creeks and puddles, to be independent, plus, that water also makes it possible for plants to grow, thus supplying food for them.
With little rainfall, it becomes advantageous to supply some water from our rainwater storage facility to augment what they don't have naturally. However, we need to be very cautious about creating a dependency thus affecting their natural instincts. Who wants tame deer? Not us. But, since it has not rained measurably between the start of February and the end of July, there is no natural water within a mile of here and the grass has never sprouted. The dried-up grass fields look like the dead of winter. Yet the temperature is usually 95 degrees at midday.
So, we feed a little and we water a lot.
The fawn population is a grand total of one in the immediate area. The deer must have expected a tough year during the mating season of last fall.
The gray fox shows up on the occasions that we put out food that was intended for the house cat, food that she refused to eat. We exhort her to eat the rejected stuff by telling her about all the starving animals in the wilds right outside her door. She is unimpressed. The gray fox loves it, knowing that if it does not eat it the raccoons will. In desperate times, there is always a buyer.
One old Texas rancher once said about collecting rainwater runoff for his cattle, "when it rains you can't stock it and when it doesn't rain, you sure can't stock it".
Well, that's where we are on this matter where we depend entirely on rainwater for our home use.
