Field Notes
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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Sky Island Coffee Break: Border Wildlife Study 90-Day Report
July 23, 2020Register for the Zoom Link Here Join us as we share new results from the first 90 days of our Border Wildlife Study documenting species in the path of the border wall. Since March 9, 2020, our 60-camera array along 34 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border recorded a huge diversity of mammals, birds, reptiles, and…
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Destructive border wall construction accelerates in the Sky Islands
July 14, 2020It’s been a difficult month in the borderlands, as COVID-19 cases soar in Arizona, and border wall construction continues at breakneck speed tearing through rugged, protected lands, and Native American sacred sites. Border wall construction is destroying large swaths of National Monuments, National Wildlife Refuges and National Forests in Arizona that are some of the most special natural places in our country. Over the past weeks and months, border wall construction has drained water out from…
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¡Las primeras imágenes del estudio de fauna fronteriza en México!
July 7, 2020Naturalia, nuestro socio en México, está colaborando con nosotros en el estudio binacional de fauna fronteriza. Desde marzo de este año, hemos capturado fotos y video las 24 horas, los 7 días de la semana a lo largo de 54 km de la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos. Tenemos 60 cámaras organizadas en siete…
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First Border Wildlife Study Photos from Mexico
Naturalia, our partner in Mexico, is collaborating with us on our binational Border Wildlife Study (BWS). Since early March of this year, we have captured photos and video 24/7 of wildlife along 34 miles of the U.S. – Mexico border. We have 60 cameras organized in seven blocks located within 3 km from the border….
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Friday Fauna Feature: Animals Immediately Return after Fire at the Border
June 19, 2020On May 31, 2020, lightning ignited a wildfire in the San Rafael Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border at one of Border Wildlife Study camera sites. After several days, the fire reached our wildlife camera as it burned across about 400 acres before it naturally went out. Fortunately, we were able to recover the memory card from the burned camera and replaced the camera, so our wildlife chronicling continued after with…
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Springs—Oases of the future?
June 10, 2020Last week, a new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment by Jennifer Cartwright and colleagues (including Sky Island Alliance’s very own Sami Hammer and Louise Misztal) was published that describes the inspiring potential for springs to provide refuge for a large array of species in the arid Southwest region as climate changes. Springs already serve as vital habitat in our dry landscape—providing water, food, and shelter for species that locally…
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Friday Creature Feature: Chiricahua Leopard Frog
May 15, 2020On this Endangered Species Day, we celebrate the Chiricahua leopard frog (Lithobates chiricahuensis) and efforts to protect this Sky Island endemic species. Being an endemic means that they are only found in this region – the Sky Islands and along the Mogollon Rim!* They live in the mountains and highlands of Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora,…
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Friday Creature Feature: Bobcat
February 28, 2020The bobcat (Lynx rufus) can be found all throughout the United States, Mexico, and Southern Canada. Like the coyote, the bobcat is adaptable and can be found in many habitat types. In the Sky Island Region, they can be found in the alpine tops of mountains to the hot desert floors. Bobcats are also adapting…
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Cómo los datos de cámaras trampa pueden cambiar ley
February 20, 2020La carretera 2 en el norte de Sonora, México, es una de las principales barreras que previene a la vida silvestre moverse entre el norte y el sur en la región de las Islas del Cielo. Debido a esta preocupación, Sky Island Alliance, en colaboración con Wildlands Network, monitoreó la carretera 2 de Sonora con…
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