Saguaro National Park conducts their saguaro census every 10 years using citizen science. This effort is to help determine the health and vitality of the saguaro population.
Sky Island Alliance is organizing 4 volunteer surveys this winter to help with their census. The surveys will be broken up by park district and by difficulty. Please see the respective links to RSVP for the event and to learn more details.
- December 7th, 2019 in Saguaro East: Longer hike ~2-3 miles
- December 10th, 2019 in Saguaro East :Shorter hike ~1 miles
- January 10th, 2020 in Saguaro West :Shorter hike ~1 miles
- January 11th, 2020 in Saguaro West: Longer hike ~2-3 miles
What we will be doing? No prior experience in surveying saguaros is necessary. We will be hiking out to our plot assigned by the National Park and counting and measuring every saguaro there. Small saguaros will be measured with rulers and the larger saguaros will be measured with clinometers. All techniques will be taught by a Park employee while we are there. Additionally, we will count the number of arms and bird holes each saguaro has. We will all work together and learn a lot about these beautiful cacti!
Once we record our data it will be submitted and posted online on the Saguaro National Park website after the survey. We will share a link when they are up.
Click here to learn more about the Census on the NPS website
