Healing the Wounds: An Example from the Sky Islands - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 195

FIGURE 10.2
Beavers were largely trapped out of wetland habitats in the southwest helping lead to degraded riparian habi-
tats (From Rurik List—beaver picture, Previously unpublished. With permission.) (Courtesy of Rurik List.)
Cattle and sheep ranchers moved into the Sky Islands area in the 1880s, and many
encouraged the slaughter of wild ungulates, seeing them as competitors with cattle and
sheep for forage. Domestic sheep transmitted diseases to both desert and Rocky Mountain
bighorns, causing their near-extinction. Livestock fencing has disrupted the movement of
pronghorn to seasonal water sources, leading to their rapid decline and agonizingly slow
recovery. Botteri's and rufous-winged sparrows declined sharply because cattle grazing in
southern Arizona severely damaged their grassland habitat. 15
With their natural prey gone, Mexican wolves, Mexican grizzlies, mountain lions, and jag-
uars turned to cattle and sheep. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture's Predatory
Animal and Rodent Control agency used traps, guns, and poison to try to completely extermi-
nate predators, including bobcats, ocelots, and coyotes. 16 By the mid-1930s, grizzlies were extir-
pated and wolves were functionally extirpated from New Mexico and Arizona. 1 7, 1 8 Mountain
lion populations were greatly reduced. Prairie dogs were functionally exterminated as a result
of a taxpayer-sponsored, government poisoning program that continues today. Many ranch-
ers disliked prairie dogs because of the mistaken belief that they damage the range. The black-
footed ferret was lost from the region because of the massive decline of prairie dogs. 19 Prairie
dogs and predators also fell victim to so-called varmint hunters. Jaguars and ocelots in the
United States were shot on sight as valuable trophies or for their fur.
In Mexico, where cattle ranching moved into the mountains later, Mexican wolves,
Mexican grizzlies, jaguars, and prairie dogs survived longer. 3 The introduction of the 1080
compound (a powerful “predicide”) in the 1950s was the major cause for the decline of
wolf populations. The grizzly was a victim of the 1080 campaign against wolves. 20 With
their numbers dramatically reduced, traps and guns took care of the surviving individu-
als. By 1980, the grizzly and wolf were functionally extinct even in Mexico. Large prairie
dog towns remain in Chihuahua, although poisoning and conversion of their habitat to
irrigated potato fields threaten them. Trophy and fur hunting of jaguars greatly reduced
their populations in northern Mexico; they are still heavily hunted as livestock killers. 21
Subsistence hunting before the 1950s and logging of the forest in the Sierra Madre
Occidental of Mexico thereafter was responsible for the extinction of the imperial wood-
pecker 22 as well as for the decline of the thick-billed parrot and military macaw.