The First Sky Island FotoFauna Insights into Wildlife of the Region
April 1, 2021It’s here—our first look at how the diversity of mammals and birds is distributed across the Sky Island region! Since launching Sky Island FotoFauna in October 2020, volunteers and organizations in Mexico and the U.S. have contributed nearly 450 monthly checklists from this…
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Protecting Dark Skies Along the U.S.-Mexico Border
March 26, 2021Dark skies are a remarkable feature of the Sky Island region. When true darkness blankets the landscape at night, it provides spectacular views of the stars and high–quality nocturnal habitat for numerous migrating and resident wildlife species. Lighting along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of…
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Border Wildlife Study Hits 1-Year Milestone
March 11, 2021This week is monumental for us. Exactly one year ago, our Border Wildlife Study camera array began clicking away to document the wildlife community along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the time we set the cameras up and left them to operate…
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Field Notes: Joining the Great Backyard Bird Count
February 12, 2021 One amazing thing I’ve realized by staying home during the pandemic is that if I just simply look out my window for more than a few seconds, it’s impossible NOT to see…
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Microscopic View of a Hedgehog Cactus Fruit
November 23, 2020Hedgehog cacti of the Echinocereus genus are relatively small-stature cactus plants with multiple cylindrical stems. In eastern Arizona, Fendler hedgehog (Echinocereus fendleri) may go unnoticed for much of the year until its brilliant pink…
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Microscopic View of a Desert Cardinal Feather
November 9, 2020 We have two lovely cardinal species that reside in the Sky Island region, the Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and Pyrrhuloxia (Cadinalis sinuatus), also known as the desert cardinal. Pyrrhuloxia has a prominent crest on its head,…
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Microscopic View of a Cholla Fruit
November 1, 2020When you zoom in closer and closer to living things you encounter in the Sky Island region, it’s amazing what you find! I was recently drawn to look more closely…
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Protecting Half of the Earth for Other Species
October 21, 2020While the global pandemic was dramatically changing all our lives in March this year, the human population reached 7.8 billion people on Earth. It’s a staggering number and testament to…
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New Sky Islands Borderlands Field Program
September 4, 2020We’re joining forces with Round River Conservation Studies to launch a new undergraduate field course in February 2021! Students who join this inaugural Sky Islands Borderland Field cohort will spend three months immersed in the mountainous grasslands…
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Wall Construction at the San Pedro River
September 2, 2020In July 2020, construction of a 30-foot steel border wall began across the last free-flowing river in Arizona. Despite monsoon floods that push water 140 miles from the San Pedro River’s headwaters in Mexico northwards to its convergence with the…
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