BORDERLANDS RESTORATION NETWORK
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The Summer of Agave Love

8/28/2020

 

By: Francesca Claverie, Native Plant Program Manager
​

During the summers of 2020 and 2021, Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN) is contracted with Bat Conservation International (BCI) to grow out and plant 1,750 Agave palmeri’s from seeds collected from southern Arizona to increase food availability for nectar-feeding bats Leptonycteris yerbabuenae (Lesser long-nosed bat) and Choeronycteris mexicana (Mexican long-tongued bat). So far this year, BRN has planted over 700 of these agaves grown in our nursery in locations including, Tucson through a partnership with the Agave Heritage Festival, in Douglas at the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish cemetery, in Sierra Vista at Fort Huachuca, and at the Babacomari Ranch in Elgin.
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To improve the chances of survivability due to sunburn, drought, and javelina attack, young agaves are installed with reinforced fencing around the base of the plant to prohibit digging from animals looking to eat their juicy bases, and shade cloth or burlap to protect the leaves. ​​​

​BRN crews have also helped BCI plant agaves at a ranch near Dos Cabezas mountain range, grown by the Gila Watershed Partnership (GWP) located in Safford, AZ who also grow agaves through BCI’s Agaves for Bats program. These coordinated efforts are critical to accomplishing on the ground work in our borderlands region, along with the long term goal to care for agaves throughout the decade or so required to wait for agaves to flower, while monitoring bat activity of nectar-producing agaves.
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These efforts on the U.S. side of the border are coordinated with plantings of agaves in both Sonora, Mexico and Nuevo Leon, in northeastern Mexico, where a different endangered species of nectar-feeding bats, Leptonycteris nivalis (Greater long-nosed bat), migrate.

Restoring agaves in our borderlands region is critical as they disappear from the landscape with increased production of the regional agave distillate, bacanora. To address threats to bats and to agaves, including the sustainability of bacanora production, policy changes need to incentivize practices that prevent further ecological degradation and restore nectar landscape connectivity, while celebrating regional food heritages and supporting restorative economies.
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BRN and one of our Sonoran partners, the Colectivo Sonora Silvestre, are working to strengthen community-based restoration of bacanora agaves through policy change by collaborating with universities, herbaria, government agencies, local policy regulators, non-profits, producers, and consumers in Mexico and the USA. Together we will evaluate connectivity of wild agave populations and impacts to pollinators on both sides of the border, supporting the creation of a cooperative, science-based, sustainability certification for bacanora production.

If you missed it, we are in the running to potentially fund our certification efforts with an award from Colorado State University Salazar Center’s Connectivity Challenge. The BRN Native Plant program is one of five finalists from across the nation competing for a $100,000 prize to fund projects that support landscape connectivity.
​

The Road Not Crossed

8/27/2020

 

By: Cholla Nicoll, BRN Wildlife Intern

One of the six wildlife cameras set up at Borderlands Wildlife Preserve monitors wildlife using the Casa Blanca Road underpass.  This camera just happens to be my least favorite to check. Its location is not easy to access forcing me to either bushwhack through thick allergy-inducing foliage, or walk along the highway with the anxiety-inducing traffic reminding me that I am far smaller than a sixteen wheeler.

​Frequently the reward for this effort is small, the camera images only showing a lonely raven or sunflowers blowing in the wind. Rarely though, the reward is well worth the effort giving me a glimpse into the lives of our wildlife and the daily paths chosen for survival.
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​Most of my rewards come from the pictures collected on an SD card. A family of turkeys who found their way to the underpass or a stealthy bobcat moving almost unseen through the creek bed.  On my most recent outing, I had a rewarding in-person experience that rang home the importance of the underpass.

As I sat crouched checking the camera, a female white-tailed deer sprinted towards me from the opposite embankment headed towards the underpass. Upon seeing me she changed course and fled in the opposite direction. Seconds later her urgency was justified as a large coyote came bounding in my direction, also changing course due to my presence. They both hesitated and then deciding hunger and survival were of more importance than my presence. They took off to meet each other’s fate.
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This experience left me pondering many things. If I hadn’t been there would the outcome of the chase be different? If the road hadn’t been there would the deer have had a better escape route? If the underpass hadn’t been there would there have been a car accident? I will never know the answers to these questions, but one thing I can say is that all three of us avoided the road that day.

​Avoiding those heavily traveled roads can save many, many lives and wildlife underpasses and overpasses have proven to save not only animals, but also the unfortunate people whose cars encounter them.

Communities around the world are considering the lives of migrating wildlife by constructing more overpasses and underpasses.  Driving less overall also saves animals' lives. As the COVID19 pandemic drags on studies are showing that tens of thousands of animals have been spared deaths on roads. The Patagonia community faces the potential for future mining traffic headed north passing directly by the Borderlands Wildlife Preserve.

More overpasses and underpasses along with making the choice to drive less will undoubtedly save lives. As the famous Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken“ says, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
For more information on declining roadkill rates see this recent study:
Roadkill Declines as COVID-19 Continues
​

For more information on recent wildlife overpass/underpass news see these links:
Bill to fund wildlife crossings in US
Wildlife overpass legislation in Mexico
Tucson wildlife crossings

Restoring Oaks

8/11/2020

 

 By: ​Sarah Ramirez, BRN Oak Intern

​I was first introduced to Borderland Restorations Network (BRN) through a tour I took with them in the summer of 2019. As a student in the horticulture field who is from a border area where I have seen the destruction that infrastructure from border wall construction and agricultural development can do, seeing BRN in action is nothing short of inspiring. To see an organization doing restoration horticulture in so many cool and different ways and working on really important projects motivated and assured me in any doubts I might have had about my career field choice.

​The agave restoration project was initially what hooked me, so I reached out for a possible internship to work and learn with BRN. I was lucky enough to be accepted for the position and have learned so much in my short time here. I have learned about how the “network” part of BRN is so crucial and how true restoration science is a collaborative effort of multiple, innovative approaches.
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​This internship has shown me how rare and special the particular oaks native to Arizona are compared to oaks in different parts of the country, specifically, Quercus emoryi. The emoryi oak is native and prolific in the Santa Cruz County and is one of the oaks indicative of the Sky Island ecosystem. Using mapping resources from SEInet I have been able to familiarize myself a little more with the Madrean mountains area, understanding the habitats that oaks grow in as well as their importance in these unique Sky Island systems.
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​Oaks as well as pines are the largest tree generas in the Northern Sierra Madre Occidental (Fleger et at.) and that translates to the regions in and around the Patagonia region. With the ever-changing climate, the monsoon rains are not as predictable and yielding as they once were, the changing of climate, along with lost practices of tree maintenance (controlled fire regimes) has stacked the odds against new generations of oaks for the future.

​Having the position as “the oak intern” has been a fun and rewarding experience, from acorn collecting to oak hunting and identifying, acorn germinating and planting, this project has been a lot of fun and I hope that my contributions have been able to help this organization in their restoration efforts.

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320-B School Street
​Patagonia, AZ 85624

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Patagonia, AZ 85624
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Phone Number: (520) 216-4148

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42 San Antonio Road, Patagonia, AZ
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www.borderlandswildlifepreserve.org


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Photo used under Creative Commons from Rennett Stowe
  • Who We Are
    • BRN Mission & Vision >
      • Policies
      • Annual Report
      • Strategic Plan
    • Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
    • Meet Our Team
    • BRN Fellows
    • Meet the Network >
      • Borderlands Restoration, L3c
      • Wildlife Corridors
      • Cuenca Los Ojos
    • Meet Our Partners
  • What we do
    • Education & Outreach >
      • Borderlands Earth Care Youth
      • Water is Life
      • Field Studies
      • Women Grow Food
      • Mesquite Workshops
      • Salud Comcaac
    • Native Plant Program >
      • Native Plant Program
      • Borderlands Nursery & Seed
      • Current Projects & Initiatives
      • Regional Seed Strategy
    • Watershed & Habitat Restoration >
      • Quail Habitat Restoration
      • Path Of The Jaguar
    • Borderlands Wildlife Preserve
  • News
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Join Us
    • Job Opportunities
    • Volunteer
    • ENewsletter
  • Blog
  • SHOP