Volunteers needed at Saguaro National Monument

[CouesWhitetail]

Buffelgrass Volunteers Needed at Saguaro National Park.

 

 

 

Help save the saguaros and Sonoran Desert from buffelgrass invasion.

 

Saguaro National Park has many opportunities for volunteers to contribute their skills and talents to the county-wide effort to control buffelgrass.

 

Opportunities for volunteers include:

 

1) systematic mapping of buffelgrass in the lower elevations of the park

 

2) development of buffelgrass outreach and education materials

 

3) presentation to staff, volunteers, and community

 

4) buffelgrass removal - "Weed Free Trails"

 

5) seed germination trials and more!

 

For more information or if you are interested in volunteering please contact Bethany Hontz at 520-733-518 (bethany_hontz) or Dana Backer at 520-733-5179 (danabacker@nps.gov)

 

Don't forget, the second Saturday of every month is buffelgrass pull day at Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park .

 

(contact: bethanyhontz@nps.gov).

 

The third Saturday of every month buffelgrass is pulled from Tuscon Mountain Park .

 

(contact: mfhanson@comcast.com).

 

 

 

Dana Backer, Ecologist

 

Saguaro National Park

 

3693 S. Old Spanish Trail

 

Tucson, AZ 85730

 

Phone: 520-733-5179

[audsley]

When regulated, controlled hunting is allowed in national parks, I'll do volunteer work in national parks. Until then, the preservationists can do it. It's their place, not mine. They've made that clear.

 

In recent times the news has been full of stories about national park wildlife over-populating to the point something needs to be done. Buffalo in Yellowstone, elk in Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park, and even buffalo in Grand Canyon Nat. Park. But the Park Service refuses to distinguish between the unregulated hunting of a century ago, which helped create a need for national parks to protect remnant populations from subsistence and market hunting, and the carefully regulated hunting we have today. Someone needs to help the park service start thinking outside their traditional, comfortable box and truly become stewards of the land as opposed to dogmatic preservationists.

[bmf1321]

Just wondering. WHat is the problem with buffelgrass? Why are people trying to remove it? Seems to me like deer, cattle, and other wildlife would benefit from it. Maybe I'm wrong. Info please.

[IHunt2live]

Just wondering. WHat is the problem with buffelgrass? Why are people trying to remove it? Seems to me like deer, cattle, and other wildlife would benefit from it. Maybe I'm wrong. Info please.

 

 

Its not native!! Sure it could result in increase feed but that grass takes over in any enviroment it lives. Its hard to say exectly what would happen but the chances are is that the plant chockes out all the native plants decreesing diversity. There are places in Mexico were it has completely taken over and I believe its not worth the chance... thats get rid of it, or sadly more realisticly slow its spread, before its to late.

[CouesWhitetail]

here is a link with some info on buffelgrass. As with many of the non-native grasses, they increase the threat of fire in the desert. And since desert plants didn't evolve with fire, a fire has a devasting impact on the native plants.

 

http://www.desertmuseum.org/invaders/invad...buffelgrass.htm

[SilentButDeadly]

Imagine living in a hyper flammable African grassland - that is what Southern Arizona is going to look like in a couple hundred years if this stuff is left unchecked - you can already see the impact it has had in Sonora MX.

 

here is a good article published last year: http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17167

 

"Buffelgrass is like taking a kiddie pool, filling it with gas, and putting it in your front yard," says Kevin Kincaid, a fire inspector for Rural/Metro, a private emergency services provider. "These fires can go from four-foot flames to 30-foot flames in 20 seconds."

[NRS]

This website will answer a lot of the common questions about buffelgrass and the hazards of it. Of big concern to whitetail hunters is that it can wipe out grasses and mesquites in the lower elevations where a lot of the coues do their rutting activities, and it will also carry fire up into the sky islands and could lead to more fires that moonscape the deer habitat at higher elevations.

 

http://www.buffelgrass.org/faq.htm

[billrquimby]

When regulated, controlled hunting is allowed in national parks, I'll do volunteer work in national parks. Until then, the preservationists can do it. It's their place, not mine. They've made that clear. In recent times the news has been full of stories about national park wildlife over-populating to the point something needs to be done. Buffalo in Yellowstone, elk in Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park, and even buffalo in Grand Canyon Nat. Park. But the Park Service refuses to distinguish between the unregulated hunting of a century ago, which helped create a need for national parks to protect remnant populations from subsistence and market hunting, and the carefully regulated hunting we have today. Someone needs to help the park service start thinking outside their traditional, comfortable box and truly become stewards of the land as opposed to dogmatic preservationists.

 

 

Well said, Audsley!