The Bright Side of Arizona's Wildlife Picture

Except where Man - either deliberately or inadvertently - has damaged the habitat, Arizona's widely varied wildlife species are doing quite nicely.

This statement might seem surprising to some, in view of today's general alarm over the fate of wildlife populations throughout the world, but surprising or not it's true - and for a number of reasons.

One of these is the fact that many of the world's endangered animals are endangered for reasons which don't apply in Arizona. Heavy commercial harvests, for example, may threaten the blue whale but they pose no danger to pronghorn antelope. Another factor is that some of the species listed as "rare" are rare only in the sense that they live in isolated habitats which are geographically limited. Arizona's Kaibab squirrel is a good example. It lives on an ecological island, surrounded on two sides by sagebrush deserts and on the other two by tremendous canyons which quite effectively discourage movement from the forest which gives the squirrel its name.

Other animals are "rare" in Arizona and always have been, simply because their natural range comes close but doesn't normally include this state. The jaguar and the ocelot, two of Central America's most glamorous large cats, sometimes wander into Arizona. They don't normally stay long, however, so they're classed as "rare" as far as their numbers in Arizona are concerned.

But being rare because of habitat limitations doesn't make an animal endangered. Humans are quite rare in many parts of the world, and while there may be some long-range speculation that our species is ultimately endangered there's no present concern over the lack of people in Antarctica.

And while this somewhat far-fetched example may sound facetious, the same principle applies to wildlife.

There is also the fact that certain kinds of wildlife don't normally exist in tremendous numbers. While deer or cottontail rabbit populations may at times nearly explode until they seem to be everywhere, this is never the case with big-horn sheep or mountain lions. Our desert bighorns have specific habitat requirements, one of which is plenty of room to wander through relatively barren mountains which are anything but fertile garden spots. Lions are predators, so their populations are limited by the numbers of their prey, plus certain "personality" traits on their own which preclude their living in colonies or herds.

This principle is true throughout nature. Count the number of praying mantises you can find in your flower garden. If it equals the number of cicadas or other choice prey insects today, the balance will be dramatically shifted by tomorrow. The prey has to outnumber the predator; otherwise, they both disappear.

Perhaps surprising, at least superficially, is the fact that wildlife which is traditionally hunted by Man is probably the safest of all. The reason is quite simple: people have been paying more attention to these creatures for longer, so their general welfare has been under constantly watchful eyes for many years. The only "huntable" animals to disappear from Arizona were the grizzly bear and the gray wolf, both of which were subjected to very heavy pressure because of their threat to livestock (and in some cases, humans). Today, though, even predatory species which might feel the pressure of too much hunting are protected by regulations. The ocelot and jaguar mentioned earlier have been protected by perennially closed seasons for several years, as have wolves and, more recently, porcupines. Several years ago it was felt the mountain lion deserved more stature among animals than that afforded him by his legal classification as "predator," so the Game and Fish Commission, with the help of other conservationists, pursued and obtained legislation making him "big game."

Even relatively unpopular reptiles have received regulatory protection when it appeared to be needed. Three species of rattlesnakes have been placed on the totally protected list in recent years, along with the long-sheltered Gila monster. Even scientific collectors are not immune from protective measures adopted by the Game and Fish Commission for certain wildlife which is considered to be at dangerously low levels in the state. Specific, formal action by the Commission itself is required before a scientific collecting permit can be issued to take even one specimen of the animals and birds on a rather lengthy list.

In addition to these safeguards which have been occurring down through the years, the state has conducted many positive steps to enhance the physical as well as the legal status of wildlife. Some species have literally been brought back from the verge of extinction. Perhaps the Arizona native trout is the most notable example. This beautiful fish had become hybridized with hatchery rainbow trout in nearly all its former range, so nearly a decade ago the Game and Fish Department searched out some pure-strain. natives, captured them and placed them in its hatcheries. Successful rearing of their offspring presented some problems at first, but today the native is well established in a number of isolated waters where contamination with other species is virtually impossible.

Similar efforts were made on behalf of several diminutive fishes, among them the Gila topminnow, the Virgin River woundfin and the desert pupfish. Efforts are now getting underway to accomplish the same thing for the Colorado River squawfish, a victim of the dams which so dramatically altered its former habitat. With birds, two species once quite common here have been reintroduced. The masked bobwhite quail, pushed off its native range when too much livestock use back around the turn of the century destroyed the grasses in which it lived, has been restored in south-central Arizona. An area in the southeastern part of the state has been created by the Department to preserve the Mexican black duck, a species once nearly extinct in Arizona. Last spring, good numbers of these birds were observed nesting in their specially-preserved habitat, an encouraging reality.

By Bill Sizer The Bright Side of Arizona's Wildlife Picture

Arizona also serves as home for two very large forms of wildlife not native here. One of these is the Rocky Mountain elk, brought into the state during the early part of this century to replace the native Merriams's elk. The latter disappeared during the last few years of the nineteenth century, concurrently with the influx of tremendous herds of livestock onto its native range. Today the elk is a common part of our natural fauna, and is doing very well.

The other, and perhaps most glamorous, of our exotics is the buffalo. Arizona has two herds, obtained by the state in the 1920's, and in spite of some grossly distorted fiction about the management program during the past couple of years, the fact remains that this state does have buffalo today. Our herds are, in fact, considered the healthiest and most type-classic in the nation, even though nature did not see fit to endow Arizona with them in the first place.

Still another factor which tends to cast a too-gloomy picture of our wildlife is the general problem of misinterpreting published lists of rare or endangered species. "Jumping to conclusions" might be a less diplomatic but more accurate way to express this tendency. "Rare and endangered" rolls off the tongue much more easily than "rare or endangered," (try it) and often the term becomes all one word: "rareandendangered." It's become much like damn-yankee," but as we pointed out earlier, the two words are not synonymous. When a name appears on such a list, therefore, people are inclined to remember only a key word or two, then apply them with a broad brush. The mountain lion makes a good case in point. The Florida lion (often called "panther") is in danger of extinction. Authorities seem to agree on that, but the mountain lion we have in Arizona and the rest of the West is not. Many people, though, assume all mountain lions everywhere in the country are on the verge of extinction. It's just not true.

Then, too, when people begin to think about the welfare of an endangered species, they tend to concentrate on the most obvious factor. Often this means they focus on the deliberate taking of an individual specimen, but fail to notice the massive annihilation of an entire population by habitat changes.

Which brings us back to the qualifying statement with which this article began: the remark about Man's influence on habitat. This can be dramatic and sudden by means of a bulldozer, or it can be subtle and insidious through chemical poisoning or competition with introduced animals. Most of these problems arise outside the regulatory authority of the Game and Fish Commission, however. They call for much more than a closed season, so the decision-making muscle has to come from elsewhere. Often this means the people themselves must decide which values they place highest.

With by far the majority of Arizona's wildlife, though, the prospects are on the bright side. And where any form of wildlife is threatened by too much harvest or any other factor within the jurisdiction of the Game and Fish Commission, the proper protective action is being and will continue to be taken.