Fundraiser helps volunteers build wildlife water guzzler in Pahrump Valley

A large apron of dirt and drainage work turned a Pahrump Valley fundraiser into a practical answer to one of Nye County’s most persistent problems: where wildlife finds water in the Mojave Desert.

Wildlife Habitat Improvement of Nevada and other conservation groups worked together on the guzzler build, a manmade water development designed to capture and hold drinking water for animals in Nevada’s driest country. The project relied on volunteer labor and local support, with crews doing the kind of work Nevada Department of Wildlife says is typical of these builds: digging, leveling dirt and team lifting to set the system in place.

The timing mattered. On April 24, volunteers were building into a drought landscape that has already pushed wildlife harder for water. NDOW said record low precipitation in 2020 left big game guzzlers across much of the desert bighorn sheep range critically low. Its drought material also says many southern Nevada mountain ranges went more than 200 days without measurable precipitation during the 2024-2025 drought period, a stretch long enough to force animals to concentrate near water developments later into the year.

That concentration changes how wildlife survives. NDOW says desert bighorn distribution becomes more restricted during extreme drought, and the animals spend more time around water sources when dry conditions tighten. The same guzzlers can also benefit mule deer and pronghorn antelope, species that depend on scattered water in country where natural springs and pools do not reliably last through the hottest months.

The build in Pahrump Valley also pointed to a larger reality in Nye County: keeping wildlife watered is not just a matter of good intentions. It depends on a mix of local donations, volunteer crews and conservation organizations willing to do the fieldwork. NDOW has described guzzlers as a core tool for wildlife in the state’s driest areas, and a Wild Sheep Foundation educational document said Nevada agencies and federal partners had installed more than 1,710 guzzlers statewide as of 2015.

That long history of guzzler construction shows why the Pahrump project mattered beyond a single fundraiser. In a county where drought routinely outlasts rain, the people who build and maintain water access for wildlife are helping decide which species can keep using the landscape and which ones are forced to move, crowd and compete around the few wet spots left.