Save the Scenic Santa Ritas

While enduring delays at the Houston airport on my way back to Tucson from south Texas on June 8, I had the good fortune to strike up a conversation with Joan Williams, who lives near Sonoita, Arizona. She is a mover and shaker in a grassroots effort to prevent a new mine from sprouting up in the very scenic Santa Rita Mountains. She convinced me to take action, and I urge you to do the same.

Southern Arizona is already studded with mines, and/or the scars left in their aftermath, and this one, proposed by Augusta Resource Corporation (a Canadian entity) and its subsidiary Rosemont Copper Company, would be a real eyesore and an environmental mess. It is certainly not an industry compatible with the ranching lifestyle currently enjoyed by residents of Santa Cruz County, or the eco-tourism industry. I can just imagine the next tour operator pointing out a bird sitting “right over there on that pile of tailings.”

The root of this current mess of public hearings, environmental impact statements, and other bureaucratic appeasement is the antiquated General Mining Law of 1872. As unimaginable as it seems, the price of staking a claim has not changed one cent since that date. You can still stake a claim for $2.50 to $5.00 an acre. Our current federal officials are loathe to impede corporate mining interests and have not acted to even reflect current prices for metals extracted from claims.

So, we are left to fight mining claims on a case-by-case basis, with little help from government. Enter Save the Scenic Santa Ritas and the Hilton Ranch Road Community Organization, both devoted to blocking the proposed mine. The groups have succeeded in mobilizing a large contingent of local residents, citizen activists, scientists, and other stakeholders. Victories have thus far amounted to delaying the endorsement of the mine through normal bureaucratic channels. This is a pretty mean feat considering the tactics of the opposition, which have included buying up domain names likely to be used by groups opposing the mine. Such “greenwashing” has become the norm for public relations by the natural resource extraction industry. Fortunately, you can’t fool all the people all of the time, and more and more citizens are waking up every day.

Please consider making a difference through public comments, support of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, and other approaches. Paraphrasing a popular legal quote, “A threat to the natural environment anywhere is a threat to the natural environment everywhere.” It is true. How can we expect other nations to clean up their act when we refuse to clean up our own? Thank you.

Pronghorn

Back on February 17 I had the good fortune to be invited on a road trip to Sierra Vista, Arizona by my friend Margarethe Brummermann. We were on our way to visit our mutual friend Pat Sullivan, and his wife Lisa Lee, when we were delighted to spot a small herd of pronghorn, Antilocapra americana.

Most of us here in the U.S. grew up learning this animal as the “pronghorn antelope,” but the truth is that this mammal is in a class by itself. Well, a family at least, and is not at all a true antelope.

Margarethe spotted this herd along Arizona state route 83, just north of the welcome sign for Sonoita. They are probably the subspecies known as the Chihuahuan pronghorn, A. a. mexicana, according to this wonderful article on the ”Firefly Forest” website run by T. Beth Kinsey. Reintroduced to Arizona from Texas, they seem to be acclimating well here.

One aspect of pronghorn biology not in dispute is their legendary speed. The fastest thing on four legs in North America, they can run well over forty (40) miles per hour (70+ km/hr), and sustain that sprint long enough to outlast any potential predator. In fact, one of their few enemies is the golden eagle. Reports of pronghorn clocked at over 60 mph may be an exaggeration, but not by much.

We expected that the herd we were observing would bolt as soon as one saw us, but such was not the case. It was sometimes even difficult to get their attention by whistling at them, so intent were they on grazing. The backdrop of the snow-dusted Santa Rita Mountains made the whole experience even more spectacular.

Back to pronghorn biology for a minute. Both genders can sport horns, er, antlers….Well, there you go again, another enigmatic aspect of this animal. Technically speaking they do have horns, but they are covered in black sheaths that are shed like antlers. Males have the forward-projecting “prong,” while the female lacks this feature. She sometimes lacks the horns altogether, in fact.

One of the best accounts I have ever read about pronghorn is by Daniel Mathews in his book Rocky Mountain Natural History (Raven Editions, 2003). He details the evolution of the species, and the maternal strategies of the females, in literary prose I cannot hope to duplicate. If it is possible to push the pronghorn mystique beyond the level of western grassland icon that it already is, Mathews has achieved that.

I, for one, am deeply grateful to state and federal wildlife agencies and personnel for insuring that this species is sustained as a piece of living history, reminding us of the true meaning of freedom and open spaces. Pronghorn truly exemplify the term “natural history.”