Since 1985, the historical Buenos Aires Ranch has operated under the management of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a national wildlife refuge. The ranch was purchased with a mandate to work towards the recovery of Masked Bobwhite Quail (Colinus virginianus ridgwayi), an endangered subspecies of Bobwhite Quail. The refuge expands over 100,000 acres in the Altar Valley, ranging from the Southern border with Mexico to just south of the city of Tucson, Arizona, where I attend university.
My role on the refuge is to aid in habitat actions for the recovery of Masked Bobwhite Quail. The Masked Bobwhite is a charismatic example of this region’s immense biodiversity. The valley’s surrounding peaks make up an island ecosystem (termed the sky islands), traversing from Sonoran Desert scrub to mesquite and oak woodlands, mixed conifer forest, and subalpine stands of Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. These sky islands provide vastly variable habitat for migratory birds, neotropical mammals, endemic herps, uniquely adapted fishes and invertebrates, and rare plants.
The southernmost stretch of the refuge is a fitting microcosm of Arizona’s borderlands. A landscape of rolling hills and sandy washes nestled between sacred peaks, this valley has been stewarded for thousands of years. I spend most of my day’s quiet moments gazing across the valley towards the northeast, where Baboquivari peak stands. Baboquivari is the Spanish name for Waw Kiwulik, the home of the creator and earth’s naval as told by Tohono O’odham oral history. This peak is a monument beyond my understanding; rarely have I felt so overwhelmed by the presence of a thing such as Baboquivari. It is wholly impossible to stand in the valley and be ignorant of its reverence.
These lands along our border are not only sacred, beautiful, and incredibly diverse, they are also torn, battered, and scarred. The legacy and breadth of the impacts of settler colonialism across the borderlands are lasting, complex, and beyond the scope of my understanding. They are also ongoing. While it would be disingenuous to attempt to capitulate the social legacy of these impacts given my poor understanding of them, their consequences on the landscape are more easily translated.
The valley’s most pressing conservation issues surround historical overgrazing, invasions of nonnative species, groundwater depletion, and the onset of regional aridification due to climate change, all of which have led to the ongoing conversion of historical Sonora savannah grassland to mesquite woodland. While strongholds of standing native grasses and forbs are present, they are sparse and interspersed among nonnative grasses and encroaching mesquite.
My first weeks in the valley have been bittersweet. This landscape is beautiful and torn. I am thankful to be here, to be afforded the opportunity to work with an agency dedicated to procuring a better future through conservation, to wave goodnight to Sonoran pronghorn and hooded orioles on my evening walks, and to bear witness to the rebirth of the summer’s first monsoon. It is a heavy-hearted gratitude, but not one without optimism.
Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Program: US Fish & Wildlife Service - DFP
Location: Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge
