Recap: Four Wheel Campers’ Earth Day Volunteer Event in Arizona
The first time I visited Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, I felt like I had traveled back in time to the Wild West. I was blown away by the vastness of the Sonoran desert grassland, and the next morning I was treated to some of the most incredible alpenglow I’ve ever seen on the Baboquivari Mountains. It was at that exact moment that I fell madly in love with the place. On my final day, I bumped into two seasonal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteers, and I left feeling inspired. I returned a few months later to document their work for Arizona Highways — and to spend several days volunteering with Friends of Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge (Friends of BANWR). I made new friends, observed new species and started thinking about how I could do more for the 118,000-acre wildlife refuge, which has its fair share of challenges.
Friends of BANWR is a nonprofit 501c3 that supports the refuge, which provides critical habitat for the endangered masked bobwhite quail, plus a wealth of other wildlife, including pronghorn, mule deer, javelina, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions and hundreds of avian species. The refuge is an hour south of Tucson, Arizona, and it sits along five-and-a-half miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Before it was acquired by USFWS in the 1980s, the refuge used to be ranch land, and from invasive vegetation to a proliferation of mesquite trees, the impact of cattle is visible everywhere. Throw in a historic drought and a lack of federal funding, and you’ll understand why the refuge needs as many friends as possible.
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