Field Notes
Friday Fauna Feature: Pronghorn
July 31, 2020The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is the last living member of the Family Antilocapridae, that roamed North American during the Pleistocene. While the pronghorn might look like antelope, their closest living relatives are the giraffe and the okapi in the African continent. These unique animals have striking orange and white coats with dark noses and eyes….
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Thank You, Congressmen John Lewis
July 30, 2020“Humanity is the most important endangered species under threat from climate change and yet we flood our ecology with poisons and pollution. It is my belief that our country needs better environmental protections and that real protections do not have to come at the expense of jobs or our economy. Whatever we do to the…
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Explore our Springs Map to Understand Conservation Need
July 28, 2020Our Sky Island region is estimated to have 10,000 springs—places where groundwater comes to the surface and provide vital water for plants, wildlife, and people. That is a huge number of water sources to track and care for across Arizona and Sonora, but we’re up for the challenge! To help us understand which springs need our help most, we developed a Spring Prioritization Tool to compare the relative…
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90 Days and 71 Species at the Border
July 24, 2020Sky Island Alliance staff and volunteers deployed trail cameras along 34 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in early March 2020. Our mission was to document the wildlife community living in one of the last wild and remote borderland corridors before border wall cuts it in two. Following the TEAM Vertebrate Monitoring Protocol (2011), we designed…
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One decade as a Latinx environmentalist
July 21, 2020I started my career in conservation in 2010, when I was hired as a Biologist Technician in the Youth Intern Program (YIPs) crew by Saguaro National Park’s Biologist Don Swann. The crew I joined that summer was SUPER diverse! We were all shades and came from all over the place! As a young immigrant from…
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Wilderness Springs Training
Did you know that springs on U.S. Forest Service land might not be protected unless they are surveyed to validate the water rights? Come learn more about our new Spring Seeker survey and how you can help survey wilderness spring this summer in Coronado National Forest! We’ll cover topics including which wilderness areas need to…
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The Environmental Hero Whose Name You May Not Know
Emma Fajardo, Community Engagement Manager at Sky Island Alliance kicked off our celebration of Latino Conservation Week on Monday with a blog post about her experiences as a Latina in conservation. Today we’re highlighting a Latina hero for the environment who is not necessarily associated with environmentalism, and whose name you may not know. I…
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Latino Conservation Week: Disfrutando y Conservando Nuestra Tierra
July 17, 2020This week marks the celebration of Latino Conservation Week in the U.S., a tradition that began in 2014 and massively grown each year! Latino Conservation Week is an initiative created by the Hispanic Access Foundation with the purpose of encouraging the Latinx community to explore the outdoors and participate in activities to protect our natural environment. The first time I heard about this event was in 2016 when, now Tucson Mayor, Regina Romero…
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Sky Island Snake Stories
July 16, 2020ZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZTCHITCHITCHIT, chit, chit, tet, tet!!! The now familiar sound of a buzzing rattlesnake comes from the ground at my feet and all I can do is freeze in place. I cannot see the snake, as it is now several hours after dark, the sky is overcast, and both my headlamp and cellphone batteries are dead….
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Rescuing Springs at the Border
July 15, 2020Rancho Los Fresnos is vital protected Mexican land directly south of Coronado Memorial and Coronado National Forest in the southern Huachuca Mountains. Managed by our partners, Naturalia, this ranch is part of our binational Border Wildlife Study and a focus of our Sky Island stewardship work this year. Los Fresnos means “the ash trees” in Spanish. Ash trees (Fraxinus spp) are in the Oleaceae…
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