News

Bighorn Death, Fuelwood, Private Shrines

Posted - Charles Miles

Bighorn sheep found dead in Coronado Forest, cause of death still unknown – Anthony Victor Reyes, KVOA.com, Another bighorn sheep death reported by AZ Game and Fish – Ina Ronquillo, KGUN9, Game and Fish reports 19th bighorn sheep death – John Ames, Tucson News Now: The first Bighorn death for months – the cause is not yet known but an attack by a predator has been ruled out.

Fuelwood permits available for portions of Mt. Lemmon – Coronado National Forest: “Fuelwood permits for portions of Mt. Lemmon, located on the Santa Catalina Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest, will be available for sale November 3 to December 15, 2014 at the Ranger District Office, 5700 N. Sabino Canyon Road in Tucson.” – more details in the press release.

More private shrines appearing on S. Arizona forest lands – Douglas Kreutz, Arizona Daily Star: An article about shrines on public lands including a picture of a private shrine just below the Babad Do’ag vista. While it may be an emotional issue the heart of the article is probably this quote from Heidi Schewel – Coronado National Forest Communications Staff Officer – “From a regulatory standpoint such personal memorials would be considered abandonment of personal property, which is prohibited,”

Catalina Bighorn Sheep Advisory Committee – Meeting Notes, Public Records Request

Posted - Charles Miles

The Friends of Wild Animals have been a vocal opponent of the Bighorn Sheep Reintroduction Project – whether or not you agree with their views they seem to have done the interested public a service with a recent Public Records Request. In response to their request the Arizona Game and Fish Department has produced documents including meeting notes for the Santa Catalina Bighorn Sheep Reintroduction Advisory Committee.

These notes are fascinating because the Advisory Committee meetings are closed to the public. There have been quite a few details released about the reintroduction project – but this is the first time (that I am aware of) – that any meaningful details about these meetings have been released. The Friends of Wild Animals have posted their conclusions about the the notes in Bighorn Sheep Committee notes reveal pattern of secrecy and deception (covered by Sonu Wasu of Tucson News Now in Watchdog group blasts Bighorn Sheep advisory board members for ‘secrecy’).

In addition to posting their own opinions on the documents the Friends of Wild Animals have posted a pdf of the notes (they note: “We have put the scattered documents into chronological order and rescanned them. To obtain the original files, please email [email protected].”).

With public lands, wildlife, Wilderness and the AZGF involved in this project it is disappointing that these meetings were not open to the public. These notes – where the members appear to struggle with the details of habitat and fire, Mountain Lions, how to measure success, environmental regulations and details about GPS collar transmissions are actually refreshing reading – surely I am not the only one who finds projects that operate behind closed doors, work to present only a carefully crafted media message, stick to ‘talking points’ and maintain suspicious levels of optimism very hard to trust/believe? I didn’t come away from reading these documents with the impression that they demonstrate the “lack of integrity” that Ben Pachano, spokesman for Friends of Wild Animals, found – but I also don’t understand why any of this information needed to be a secret.

Bighorn Project Status Update with Late 2014 Release Details, LBN 438

Posted - Charles Miles

The Bighorn Sheep Restoration Project Status update for 10/13 to 10/27 is now available (all updates are currently available here). Like the last update this document has some discussion of the construction of utilization distributions that are described as a “three-dimensional view of an animal’s home range [that] depicts the probability of an animal using a particular location”. This is the first update with details about the planned release of more Bighorn into the Santa Catalina Mountains before the end of the year – a few interesting details:

  • [AZGF] has learned [from working to increase statewide population levels from 1,100 to 5,500 since the 1950s] that one of the keys to success is to augment the founding or resident herd with subsequent translocation efforts. These augmentations help the herd establish faster, generally leading to a decreased future need for direct human intervention. 
  • The wilderness within the Tonto National Forest is the preferred source for Bighorn to translocate – but helicopter landings with Wilderness areas take special authorization – until a decision is reached on permission to use helicopters in the Tonto National Forest Wilderness areas the plan will be to capture bighorn sheep on the Tonto NF outside of designated wilderness and on Bureau of Land Management lands east of Quartzite. 
  • Last year, there was a large gallery of people that observed the release. For the welfare of the sheep, this year the release will be limited to credentialed media and a small number of guests.

There have been a number of news articles about this including: 

 

For something completely different: the UA Science Sky Center Recent Images Gallery has a beautiful picture of nebula LBN 438  from the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter.

New Bighorn Release Planned, Bigelow Sunset – 10/26/2014

Updated - Posted - Charles Miles

More bighorns being relocated to Catalinas, Arizona Daily Star, Doug Kreutz – The first news article that I have seen about the intent to release 30 additional Bighorns into the Santa Catalina Mountains before the end of the year. There are a number of interesting details in the article including: the intended primary source of sheep is from the Tonto National Forest and that “the exact sheep release sites in the Catalinas will not be disclosed to the public”.

The Bighorn Sheep Restoration Project Status update for 9/29 to 10/12 has been available for over a week now (all updates are currently available here) – no changes are noted in population numbers, some interesting research notes are included: “we will use the sheep location data being collected via satellite collars to quantify an “intensity of space use” for each sheep by constructing a utilization distribution (UD)”.

 

1410 Sunset off the Bigelow Road
Clouds in the Sunset from a hillside near the Bigelow Road not far from Mount Bigelow. October 2014.

I enjoyed an evening run on 1918, Secret and Bigelow Road – on 1918 thru Bear Wallow there are still fall colors on the trees and the fallen leaves on the trail were a treat – the big trees on Secret made the dark cool evening even more enjoyable after our long summer – this was the first time I can remember in recent months that it was cool enough for a long sleeve shirt! 4.9 miles, +/- 890′ of elevation gain/loss.

1918 and Bigelow Road, Fall Colors, Construction – 10/20/2014

Updated - Posted - Charles Miles
1410 Fall Color
Fall color above the the 1918 Trail. October 2014.

There was steady traffic on the highway and every trailhead I could see had at least one car – on such a lovely day it was inspiring to see so many people out enjoying the mountain. I parked at the Sunset Trailhead and took the unsigned 1918 Trail – the trail runs along a stream near the highway and into the Bear Wallow area – never far from the road, but so beautiful with the fall colors that the sounds of the cars are easily forgotten.

1410 Fall Color along 1918
Bright fall color in the sun along the 1918 Trail. October 2014.

Eventually I turned onto Bigelow Road – steady running to the top – back the way I came. 1918 and Bigelow Road to Mount Bigelow and back the same way – 7 miles, +/- 930′ elevation gain/loss (round-trip).

The changing leaves have been featured in several recent articles – both have some suggestions about places to go to see the colors: Autumn leaves flush Catalinas with color, Douglas Kreutz, Arizona Daily Star – and Hittin’ the Trails 4 You: Mt. Lemmon’s Fall color hot spots, Jeff Beamish, KVOA.com.

Another great post to with some fall colors in the Santa Catalina Mountains is Sirena’s Happy 5th Anniversary! – congratulations to Sirena on her blog’s 5th anniversary! Sirena’s Wanderings is a GREAT source of information and inspiration!

Road construction is on-going – on the weekends there are no delays but areas like the one below (with the pavement removed) located just down-mountain from the Ridgeline Parking Pullout are likely to cause delays on the weekdays…

1410 Construction on the General Hitchcock Highway
Pavement removed – construction underway – there are no current delays on the weekend days, but expect delays during the week – just below the Ridgeline Parking Area. October 2014.