Natural History

RETURN OF THE DESERT BIGHORN On a Desert Mountain, Volunteers Go All Out to Provide a Permanent Water Source for This Endangered Species

Nearly 100,000 years ago, they crossed the Bering land bridge and slowly migrated south, arriving in the area of present-day Arizona about 10,000 years ago. Through most of the ensuing centuries, neither nomadic human hunters nor drastic climatic changes would threaten their existence. Then came modern man.

By 1910 the magnificent desert bighorn sheep was on the verge of extinction in Arizona. It began with the arrival of diseasebearing livestock. Miners camped by bighorns' watering places and shot them for food. Farms and highways fragmented their habitat. Waterways were choked off. Finally they remained only in the Grand Canyon and remote mountain ranges in the southwest corner of the state.

Starting in 1939, protective game preserves were established in Arizona, but the sheep did not flourish. Water was the critical problem. Cut off from sources outside their barren retreats, they often died during periods of extended drought.

In 1967 concerned outdoorsmen formed the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society. Its slogan, Sine agua mortis, "Without water, death," is an abiding reminder of the plight of the bighorn and the motivation for a project that goes back more than 20 years.

The society has contributed more than 120,000 man-hours and nearly $1.5 million to build water reservoirs for the beleaguered animals. These hardy volunteers perform their work in some of the state's most rugged and inaccessible mountains.

In the soft light of a cloudless late-winter dawn, photographer Jim Tallon and I leave Phoenix heading northwest. Beyond Wickenburg, we take U.S. Route 93 to Wikieup where we stop for breakfast at a café with a hand-lettered sign that says, "We serve good food. Ask any coyote." Afterward, we move west on Chicken Springs Road, a dirt path that undulates toward apparent nowhere through stands of cacti and brush. At a nameless junction, we turn left. From this point on, we follow small signs placed by pathfinding members of the society. Mile after mile the road continues its metamorphosis, changing inexorably from bad to worse. We pass the society's base camp, wave to the cooks preparing the evening feast of steak, cowboy beans, and "pocket rockets," the latter a questionable delight created by stuffing tuna paste into fiery jalapeño peppers. By the time we reach the remains of a long-abandoned mining camp, we are vibrating erratically over potholes and rocks. Jim, doing the driving, talks under his breath to the boulders banging the underframe. After 47 dusty miles without a sign of human habitation, the road runs out in a deep arroyo. Pickup trucks and other desert-qualified vehicles are scattered about. I step out into the sun-spangled early-morning air and greet the desert's profound silence. Way across the wash, I see an orange ribbon tied to a bush. Beyond the bright trail marker and far above, the dark bulk of an ancient volcanic core stands against the sky. Falling away from its sides is a convoluted, canyon-crossed segment of the Rawhide Mountains. We start walking. The path set by the guiding ribbons is always uphill but tolerable. Until we encounter the gorge. Like some grotesque scar, it courses down from a 3,000-foot peak. Rock-bottomed, boulder-strewn with 100-foot cliffs on each side, it is the product of eons of rare torrential rains and flash-flood runoffs that, hours later, leave the land as dry as it had been before the deluge. From this point on, the route becomes semidangerous at best. High above the jagged ravine, the ribbons skirt the cliffs. I'm cautious about the crumbling rock formations. I reach toward an outcropping above and test the ledge by pulling against it. A chunk comes loose and falls on my downhill side, cartwheeling off the cliff. If I had gone with the rock, a short slide would have taken me into the needle-sharp spines of a clump of cholla. A long slide, and I might have gone off the cliff. Deep into the mountain, we turn a corner and encounter the anticipated incongruity: more than 50 people in the nearly vertical gorge moving with the purpose and speed of a construction crew fighting a deadline. This is Saturday and some have been working since Thursday; most will stay through Sunday.

A line of men, women, and young people snakes its way out of a side canyon. Like a bucket brigade, they pass boulders to the end of the line to be dumped into a rock filtration dam that will hold back debris but permit the passage of water.

Up on the high cliffs, a welder and his helpers construct a rail fence of metal pipe, a barrier to wild burros but not to desert bighorns. There is no prejudice toward the burros, but they often defile the water and drive bighorns away. The burros can go to more populated areas for water; the timid sheep will not.

Fifty yards below the filtration dam, masons wield trowels while others operate the cement mixer, carry fresh mortar, and stack concrete blocks. This is the primary dam, designed to impound as many as 25,000 gallons of precious water.

One mason is Dick Henry, a frequent volunteer who operates a construction firm.

He drives several hundreds of miles on weekends to lay blocks without pay. Dean Bowdoin, another block layer, is a computer engineer and the society's project chairman.

At a convenient point between the two dams, steel pipe and lumber are moved into the area. These will be welded and assembled into a shade cover over the catchment, minimizing evaporation and impeding algae growth. All equipment and materials are flown in by helicopter. In distant years, the society members transported everything on their backs.

I recognize people I had met previously on a similar project in the sprawling Estrella Mountains adjacent to South Mountain on Phoenix's south side. One of them, John Gunn, habitat development supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, joins me as he takes a break. “Bad canyon,” I remark.

He laughs. “Only average,” is his reply. I ask him how the projects are implemented. “We plan and execute in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management,” he tells me. “Each project takes about 1,000 man-hours and about $12,000 in materials, including the helicopter. That's where the bighorn society has been invaluable. They've provided the bulk of the money and labor for more than 120 projects.” “How many sheep in these mountains?” I ask.

DESERT BIGHORN

“Seventeen," he replies. "Twenty to 40 in the Estrellas. Total population statewide is about 4,500."

Dean Bowdoin, the block-laying project chairman, and Louie Coor, the society's VP, join us in the welcome shade of the cliff. "Many of us are hunters," Louie tells me. "But most of our members will never obtain a permit much less harvest a ram."

(RIGHT) The habitat of desert bighorns is remote and rugged. When volunteers building the catchment needed supplies, the easiest way to bring them in was by helicopter.

"How long before a hunting permit will be offered in this area?" I want to know. The habitat supervisor replies. "Maybe 20 years, maybe never."

"Usually fewer than 80 hunting permits are issued statewide each year," Dean says. "Chances for getting one are about as good as those for winning a million-dollar lottery. Louie, here, got a permit and took his ram over 20 years ago, right?" Louie nods.

Dean tells me that a hunter is permitted only one bighorn in his lifetime. "But Louie's been on our projects every year since he got his. We're doing seven projects this year. How many you plan on making?" he asks Louie.

"I'll miss one," Louie replies. "Have to go on a trip."

"Where does the money come from?" I inquire.

Louie smiles. "It's pretty simple. The Arizona Game and Fish Department gives us two hunting permits a year. We raffle one; auction the other. The raffle can go as high as $25,000. The biggest auction price was $43,000."

Dean cuts in. "That's enough for seven or eight projects a year. Some money comes from the BLM, the State of Arizona, and a few conservation groups."

"This year," Louie tells me, smiling, "we received nice amounts from the Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa chapters of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. And Wisconsin sent 14 volunteers to our project in the Estrellas." John Gunn, the habitat supervisor, returns to work. Joe Machac, the society's president, quickly takes his place in the shade. All three men are near or past retirement age, but they obviously relish the long climbs and the hard labor. "How old is the oldest worker?" I ask.

(LEFT) The cliffs above the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park afford bighorns the rocky and steep terrain they prefer. When spotted, they often are perched atop high crags.

They scan the canyon. "We've got a couple over 70," Joe replies. "Youngest is about 10," he says, pointing to a boy hefting blocks in the gully below.

Louie queries Joe. "You ever had a hunting permit?" Joe shakes his head in the negative. "How long have you been building water holes?"

"Eighteen . . . 19 years . . . about 90 projects," Joe replies. Then Joe shows a slight smile and looks toward a faraway crag. "I'll probably never get a permit, but knowing the sheep are here and me climbing the canyons once in awhile to watch them is enough. There's something fascinating about a big ram on a sheer cliff, walking on the edge of space."

By midafternoon, Jim Tallon has finished his photo shoot, and we say goodbye to our canyon friends.

As we head down the mountain, an eagle sweeps across the ravine, glides upward, and lands on the old volcanic core. The regal bird stirs my thoughts. While at the construction site, I sensed the workers' concern for the bighorns, but I feel that, surely, all of them are drawn to the mountains by the environment as well, touched, as I am, by the stark beauty, the silence, and the sense of timelessness that resides in the deep and lonely canyons.

William Hafford learned to appreciate water in the desert during the late 1950s when he worked with a survey team southwest of the Rawhide Mountains, and temperatures up to 133° F. were recorded a foot above ground level. He also wrote about Mount Baldy in this issue.

James Tallon loves to go where the bighorns play; it helps keep his acrophobia in check.