The Internationally Known Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The internationally known ARIZONA-SONORA Desert Museum Tucson Mountain Park TUCSON, ARIZONA

A visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a fascinating and informative experience for the entire family The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is in Tucson Mountain Park, fourteen miles west of Tucson, Arizona. There are good paved roads all the way. It is adjacent to the Tucson Mountain District of Saguaro National Monument and is about sixty miles from Mexico. The view from the Museum porch is breathtaking. One's eyes sweep down across the gray-green sea of the Avra Valley, encompass six mountain ranges, and look westward across the Papago Indian Reservation and southward beyond the Mexican border.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is known throughout the world. Visitors from every state in the Union, as well as many foreign countries, total more than 300,000 annually. Its educational programs have become an integral part of local school systems, and its influence is becoming an increasingly important factor wherever conservation programs are underway. It is, in the words of the late famous explorer Roy Chapman Andrews truly one of the foremost living museums in the world.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a unique institution visited by more than 300,000 people annually The Museum's initial physical plant was provided for and is maintained by the Board of Supervisors and the Parks and Recreation Committee of Pima County. The original buildings, erected in 1937 by the National Park Service, were given to Pima County and turned over to the Museum in 1952. Since that time many new structures have been added by the Museum, reflecting the generosity of numerous friends. Planned for the future are exhibits depicting the aquatic life of the Gulf of California, a true desert sea, and the geology of the region. Others will house many of the present animals and new ones in display areas as nearly like their natural habitats as possible. The Desert Museum is one of few self-supporting natural history institutions in the country. Its growth and current operations are financed by admissions, memberships, and contributions. Its creation was made possible by grants from the Charles Lathrop Pack Forestry Foundation and the American Nature Association.

ITS PURPOSES

The Museum, with its winding nature trails and living animals, indoors and out, has several purposes, among them:

ITS FEATURES

The Orientation Room, of special importance, introduces visitors to the area covered by the Museum, and includes information on deserts in general, their formation and location. Plant and animal adaptations are stressed. The displays provide a framework for the educational and enjoyment value of the other exhibits throughout the Museum grounds.

The Small Animal Room exhibits creatures ranging in size from centipedes and scorpions to rodents, and contains the most complete collection of desert snakes and lizards extant. Most are shown in living dioramas depicting their natural habitat, a Desert Museum innovation.

The Large Animal Enclosures include such species as mountain lion, jaguar, bear, deer, peccary, and numerous other varieties. The nearby Walk-In Tortoise Enclosure, Prairie Dog Village, Chulo Town, and Vampire Bat Display are especially popular.

Birds are displayed in unique circular aviaries, and also in walk-in enclosures. More than 75 species are on exhibit, including many kinds of hawks, owls, quail, and doves, and such large types as eagles, vultures, and falcons.

Beaver-Otter-Sheep Complex. The Otter and Beaver sections display these playful animals in large natural-type pools, with an underground room which provides underwater viewing, a glimpse into the animals' dens, and additional exhibits. An exhibit of Desert Bighorn Sheep completes this extensive project.

The Underground Tunnel provides an especially interesting and unique experience. Here the visitor goes underground for a close-up look at the daytime hiding places of such animals as kit fox, ringtails, badgers, ants and rattlesnakes. Featured is a large Bat Cave with stalactites and a colony of fruit-eating bats. Exhibits of plant root systems complete this absorbing underground story.

The Watershed Exposition, first of its kind in the world, is centered around Water Street, U.S.A. Exhibit areas offer a wonderland of electronic instrumentation, spotlighting our most critical natural resource water. Its purpose is to show the importance of such forces as evaporation, erosion, infiltration, and other related factors.

The Canyon Habitat for Small Cats houses, in natural surroundings, the margay, ocelot, jaguarundi and bobcat. Underground as well as surface viewing will be featured. An informational exhibit area is also included.

A Beehive House such as the Papago Indians once used is on the Museum grounds. Designed by the Indians, it contains many authentic items of equipment and a sand painting. Adjoining this is an outdoor cooking area.

The Amphibian Room offers another first in display arrangement. Four living dioramas show life in different types of aquatic communities, and feature frogs and toads. Small tanks contain aquatic insects and amphibians. Nearby, an Aquarium Exhibit of ten tanks provides the country's first display of native desert fishes, as well as some marine species. In the same room is a collection of local rocks and minerals, including one section with specimens that visitors are invited to handle.

The Nature Trails and Botanical Gardens contain hundreds of labels giving information on the numerous kinds of cacti and other plants growing there. Special exhibits include the Desert Museum-Sunset Magazine Demonstration Desert Garden, Saguaro Ramada and the Haag Memorial Cactus Garden.

All indoor exhibits are in air-conditioned buildings. Throughout the exhibit areas are strategically-placed water fountains and shade ramadas. Strollers and wheel chairs are available free of charge.

NICK WILSON has chosen to focus his artistic talent toward painting mammals of the Southwest. It has taken him years of research and experimentation, furthered by his association with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, to attain the qualities of professionalism that his work now exhibits. Viewing one of his originals is a refreshing experience heightened by the realization that here is an artist who portrays wildlife without the usual hint of man's intrusion. Works in mixed media by Nick Wilson are being sought after by increasing numbers of art patrons and collectors. A plan is currently under consideration for an extensive series of limited edition prints under the auspices of the Franklin Mint which was initially introduced to Wilson's renderings by Andrew Wyeth. It is with sound reasoning that many believe Nick Wilson is on his way to becoming one of the leading wildlife artists in North America.