The National Park Service

preserves unimpaired the

natural and cultural

resources and values of the

National Park System for the

enjoyment, education, and

inspiration of this and future

generations.

The mission of the USDA

Forest Service is to sustain

the health, diversity, and

productivity of the Nation’s

forests and grasslands to meet

the needs of present and

future generations.

Grand Canyon… Yellowstone… Great Smoky Mountains… unarguably some of the

most spectacular natural places on the planet. All are U.S. National Parks. Noted

filmmaker Ken Burns called national parks “Americas Best Idea” in his award winning

2009 documentary. Although some of my friends in Mongolia tell me that Chinggis

Khan should get credit for the idea. Regardless of who’s idea it was for a nation to set

aside significant natural and historical places and preserve them for future generations -

so that we can all enjoy and learn from them - I agree that it is a great idea. I really do

consider these places to be national treasures. In our own great state of Arizona for

instance, there is no better place to relax, reflect, and re-wind than the north rim of the

Grand Canyon. It is the less accessible and thus, less visited of the two rims. No

surprise then that it is my favorite. But in my humble opinion it is also the more

visually inspiring. The porch at the lodge is nice, but to really enjoy the north rim you

need to get out to one of the other vantage points away from the lodge. Spend a few

hours at one of these vistas and you may say it looks like a scene from a science fiction

movie… marvel at the cumulative effects of time and water… or like me you may just

be in awe of God’s handiwork; but we will all come away from there just a little

Inside this issue:

October 2015

T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F A R I Z O N A , S C H O O L O F N A T U R A L R E S O U R C E S A N D T H E E N V I R O N M E N T

National Park ≠ National Forest

1 - 4

Chris’s Hot Topic of

Range: The

approaching

Godzilla El Niño and

Monster El Niños of

5 - 9

Plant of the “week”

The Boojum

10 - 11

Lisa’s Class is

Outside Today:

Campers and

Cowpies

12 - 13

The View From the

Rim

14

Just Me Talking 14

The Rimrock Report

…words like

“preserve” and

“unimpaired”

have different

connotations

than “sustain”

and

“productivity”…

Volume 8, Issue 4

National Park ≠ National Forest

Grand Canyon North Rim. Photo courtesy of Jay Angerer

The Rimrock Report

National Park ≠ National Forest….continued

Page 2

different. That is one of the cool things about

national parks. Cliché as it may sound, we can all

feel like the parks belong to us and that we can have

our own personal experiences there. Even if we paid

to get in and are surrounded by thousands of our

closest friends. I will never forget going to Grand

Canyon for the first time with my Mom, Dad, and

little Sister when I was about 8 years old. I don’t

remember the other people there, just us… looking at

the biggest hole in the ground I had ever seen, the

wild array of colors, and my folks laughing at me

chasing those funny little squirrels with the big ears

around our campsite. Somewhere, stuck in a family

scrapbook, there are faded Polaroids to prove it.

Those of you under the age of 40 will probably have

to Google “Polaroid Camera” to know what I am talking about. To me, these little personal or family moments

are one of the gifts of national parks. They are priceless.

So what about national forests? Why did I choose the title of this article? Don’t national forests have spectacular

scenery and historical sites? Can’t we have similar experiences in them? Yes, many of them absolutely do, and

yes, we certainly can. I think national forests are also national treasures. I could (but I will spare you) recount

similar family camping trips to the Ouachita, Sam Houston, or Mark Twain national forests when I was a kid.

National forests provide many outstanding recreational opportunities for millions of visitors each year and most

of the time there is no entrance fee. But they are not parks. Did you catch any differences in the two mission

statements at the beginning of this article? Both are concerned with providing opportunities for future

generations, but words like “preserve” and “unimpaired” have different connotations than “sustain” and

“productivity”. A national park is not the same as a

national forest. Nor should they be. They each have

specific important purposes and should be managed

differently.

By now I expect those of you employed in agriculture or

natural resources are probably either asking yourselves

why I chose to write about something so obvious or, are

saying “yes, somebody needs to talk about this”. The

reason I chose to write about this subject is that I live and

work in one of the most spectacularly beautiful places in

the world, and although we do have some great national

monuments and historic sites in our area, we are not a

Verde River and Mingus Mountain in winter

Upper West Clear Creek

Volume 8, Issue 4

National Park ≠ National Forest….continued

national park. Most of the land in the Verde

Valley is within either the Coconino or Prescott

national forests. It does not get much prettier

than snow on the red rocks of Sedona, sunsets

over Mingus Mountain after a monsoon

thunderstorm, or golden eagles soaring along

the sheer cliffs in West Clear Creek. None of

these places are national parks, but you may be

surprised how many people I run across who

don’t seem to know the difference. For them,

the Verde Valley is their playground. On the

one hand that is a great thing. People need to

get out of Phoenix, away from traffic and noise,

get out on the desert, range, and forest lands; to

enjoy and appreciate the natural resources we have here. Our little communities need them to visit and spend

money. But we also need them to understand that people live and work here. Not just in the local businesses,

but out on the land. On their playground. We need them to understand multiple use.

The U.S. Forest Service motto is: Caring for the Land and Serving People. Their website says that this phrase

“captures the Forest Service mission. As set forth in law, the mission is to achieve quality land management

under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people” . There are a lot

more people in the Phoenix (~3.5 million) and Tucson (~ 1 million) metro areas than there are in rural

Arizona. The population of the entire state is ~ 6.5 million. And even though people in Arizona are generally

pretty environmentally conscious, and grew up learning about the 5 C’s (Cattle, Copper, Citrus, Cotton and

Climate) in school, it is still not too surprising that many view the lands outside of town as simply a place for

recreation. Multiple use to them means that they can hunt, fish, hike, camp, bird watch, take photographs, ride

ATV’s, etc… but they may not consider activities such

as grazing or logging to be appropriate on public land

such as a national forest. They tend to think of these

places more like they do national parks. And I

understand that. It is not really their fault. Most people

in the U.S. are a generation or two removed from any

type of agriculture or natural resource based livelihood.

I have had people (local and tourists) ask me things like:

“what are those fences doing on the forest anyway?”, “I

pay taxes, this is my land, why do I have to shut

gates?”, “why do they allow cows on our forests?” or

“why are they letting all those beautiful trees just burn

up?” .

Page 3

V Bar V cows in the pines near Mahan Park

V Bar V cow in Cedar Flat with view of red rocks

National Park ≠ National Forest.…continued

The Rimrock Report Page 4

Now to be honest, I have also had people ask me where they can go out on the national forest and see

cowboys. But in general, the above described mentality and lack of understanding makes it tough for national

forest managers who are trying to accomplish multiple use. It makes it tough for ranchers who are trying to

turn renewable natural resources into a usable product for the public in a sustainable manner. It makes it tough

for scientists and educators to obtain funding so that we can do research and provide education to help the

land management agencies or producers do what they do. But that is just how it is. So, those of us who do live

and work out here in the “middle of nowhere” have our work cut out for us. I am admittedly biased but I think

this is especially true for those of us in extension. It is our job to not only help create knowledge and

experience, but also to get the word out to the general public about our agricultural and natural lands. What

they are, what they do, why they are important, how we should be stewards of them… So, I will apologize for

this article being a little more rant and a little less educational, but this just hits close to home. I had intended

to take a more thorough and scientific look at this subject but just ran out of time. I do have some interesting

literature about the ecological condition of park lands in Canada. Maybe that can be a future article? While I

am at it, I will also make this a recruiting call. Next time you are out on national forest land (or BLM for that

matter), and you meet someone who thinks they are in a park… take some time and explain the difference.

Brag about our national parks and our national forests. Tell them about the people who live in, work on, and

care for these lands and manage them for the benefit of all of us. You might also tell them that if they would

take their beer cans, diapers, and empty rifle shells back to civilization with them, we would sure appreciate it.

Article by Doug Tolleson

Bell Rock in the snow

Chris's Hot Topic of Range: The Approaching Godzilla El Niño and Monster El Niños of the past

Volume 8, Issue 4 Page 5

‘Godzilla’ El Nino May Be on the Way ~ ABC news, 08-14-2015

Godzilla El Nino vs. the blob: ‘The mighty Godzilla will prevail’ ~ KOMO news, 09-02-2015

El Niño 2015-16: Godzilla or Mothra? ~ Dr. Mike Crimmins, WRRC Seminar 09-15-2015

The latest winter forecasts have been made and it seems we are in for a bit of a monster mash; a “Godzilla El

Niño”! This El Niño is on track to be one of the largest ever recorded in the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) 65 years of

tracking them; possibly beating out the previous record set back in the

winter of 97-98. Godzilla is the king of monsters, and using him as the

surname of El Niño brings to mind unrelenting widespread devastation and

destruction. However, Godzilla has at times come to the defense of

mankind, especially when faced with external threats such as invasions from

Nebula M Space Hunter Aliens and their monster Gigan. So is this Godzilla

El Niño friend or foe? What can we expect? What exactly is an El Niño

anyway?

In general an El Niño is defined as the warm phase of the El Niño Southern

Oscillation (ENSO) and is described as a prolonged warming of ocean

surface temperature along the equator

in the Pacific Ocean. The specific quantitative definition is a little more

complicated. There’s a stretch of Pacific Ocean some few hundred

miles south of Hawaii called the Niño 3.4 Region (figure 2). NOAA

records that area’s surface temperature and compares it to the average.

If the water temperature is at least 0.5°C (0.9°F) above average for three

consecutive months then we are in an El Niño, if the average is below

0.5°C (0.9°F) then we are in a La Niña phase. The strength of the El

Niño or La Niña is determined by the current temperature’s distance

from the average. The ENSO is not a perfect Oscillation, with the

warming and cooling phases having no real pattern beyond periodically

changing from warm to cool at two to seven year intervals, and each El

Niño and La Niña event can last nine months to two years (Fig 3). No

one knows exactly how the warming phase actually starts, but it seems

the ENSO shifts between warm and cool with a third of the time in El

Niño. At the moment we are 1.2°C (2.1°F) above average, and are

projected to get warmer through the winter.

Figure 1: Scene from "Godzilla 2000"

Figure 2: Top: ENSO area where the Sea Sur-face Temperature (SST) is recorded to deter-mine if we are in an El Niño. Bottom: Map of SST as of 9-28-2015 (earth.nullschool.net)

Chris's Hot Topic of Range… continued

The Rimrock Report Page 6

So what can we expect from Godzilla? Globally there’s a reduction or

even a reversal of trade wind speed along the equator in the Pacific.

Ocean currents also change, reducing the amount of cool nutrient rich

water that cycles up along the South America coast, which can devastate

the fishing industry down there. For climate the general theme is more

hurricanes in the Pacific, fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic, and drier and

warmer conditions for the Pacific Northwest USA, South American

tropics, Australia, and Southeast Asian tropics. For us in the Southwest

USA we can expect cooler temperatures with above average moisture

(Figure 4). The magnitude of all these changes often depend on the

strength of the El Niño, and with a Godzilla El Niño…well now, we

should expect a very interesting winter.

Figure 3: Top: Oceanic Niño estimates for El Niño/La Niña Oscillations since 1950. Bottom: Southern Oscillation

Index of El Niño/ La Niña since 1880.

Both graphs have the vertical axis in Celsius with above zero representing El Niño and below zero representing La

Nina.

Chris's Hot Topic of Range…...continued

Volume 8, Issue 4 Page 7

The winter ‘should’ be interesting, which means it might;

these are predictions after all. The 97-98 El Niño came in

with a lot of fanfare as the largest recorded El Niño, with

newsies shouting out calamitous climate predictions from

newsstands across America. Newspapers ran headlines like,

“Devastating El Nino Forecast/ Scientists fear ecosystem

chaos”, the Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA) warned the population to prepare for potentially

heavy rains and flooding, and several sources reminded the

population that the previous monster El Niño in 82-83 killed

161 and cost $2.2 billion (1983 dollars). In Arizona the Bar

T Bar Ranch, located east of Flagstaff, prepared for the 97-

98 monster El Niño by purchasing blizzard insurance for the

first time. When the monster El Niño came it pummeled

California with record rain and flooding, soaked Tucson

with above average rainfall, and left the Bar T Bar with a

below average mild winter (Fig 5).

Graphs of the 97-98 cumulative winter rainfall for Tucson

and Flagstaff show Tucson with above average rainfall by

December while Flagstaff stayed below average until some

late March storms finally brought the area some much needed precipitation (Fig 6)

Figure 5: West Wide drought tracker. Rainfall from October-

May 1998 is compared to the average rainfall recorded over

the past century. Northeast Arizona had average rain despite

the Monster El Niño

Figure 6: Cumulative winter rain charts from October to June with the brown area representing below average and green area representing

above average precipitation. The bottom blue bars represent rainfall intensities. Left: Precipitation for the 97-98 El Niño for Tucson. Right:

Precipitation for the 97-98 El Niño for Flagstaff.

Chris's Hot Topic of Range….continued

The Rimrock Report Page 8

That was the biggest El Niño recorded and it didn’t quite bring Flagstaff 14 inches of precipitation. The 82-

83 monster El Niño had a very similar impact to the southwest. California received record rain and flooding,

Tucson was soaked with conditions almost identical to 97-98, and Flagstaff? Flagstaff received over 20

inches of moisture (Fig 7). This is why climate predictions are difficult, the climate model probabilities can

increase or decrease, but they are still probabilities; Better betting odds are nice, but it still doesn’t mean we’ll

win when we place our bets.

Figure 7: Left; Cumulative winter precipitation for the 82-83 El Niño for Tucson. Right; Cumulative winter precipitation for the 82-83

El Niño for Flagstaff.

Figure 8: West Wide Drought tracker. Rainfall from October-May 1998 is compared to the average rainfall recorded over the past

century. Left: 82-83 Monster El Niño. Right: 72-73 Monster El Niño

Chris's Hot Topic of Range….continued

Volume 8, Issue 4 Page 9

Still, the probabilities can help us prepare for the winter.

Figure 5 and Figure 8 show the West Wide Drought

Tracker for the winter precipitation of the last three

monster El Niños; 72-73, 82-83, and 97-98. You can

see that there is a general pattern for these El Niños

across the Southwest, but you can also see the

variability in rainfall patterns in where the record rain

falls and where there’s drought. In fact 72-73 was the

last El Niño that brought Arizona record rainfall, with

Happy Jack ranger station in Coconino County

recording 37.5 inches, well above its 15 inch average

and setting the record as the wettest and coldest winter

in its recorded history (Fig 9). Meanwhile much of

California was average with no record rain.

What does this say about this year’s Godzilla El Niño

and how it will impact us? That is still hard to say.

Despite the historic data of past El Niños and

sophisticated climate models it is difficult to create an exact prediction, that is the reason all the climatologists

give a vague “cooler and wetter than average” answer and leave it at that. The gist of it is that there’s no real

way to know the exact impact, especially when talking about local conditions. ENSO has a lot of variation to

it and there are about a dozen other ocean oscillations that can pull and tug at various global conditions; and

that is not including strange anomalies like the warm blob currently out between Hawaii and California.

However, those vague climatologist answers can be useful, with good betting odds that this year will be great

for skiing across the Southwest, that California better brace itself for potential floods, that Northern Arizona

might finally see a decent snow pack, and that Southern Arizona will have a very wet Winter. Here’s hoping

Godzilla comes in as a friend this time around.

Figure 9: Cumulative winter precipitation for 72-73 El Niño at

Happy Jack Ranger Station

Scene from the 1968 classic “Destroy all Monsters”

The Rimrock Report

Plant of the “Week” by Amber Dalke

“Ho, Ho, a Boojum, Definitely a Boojum!”

An early southwestern naturalist, Godfrey Skyes,

provided the common name for the Boojum tree.

The story goes that a group of scientists from the

Desert Laboratory was standing on an elevated

area in Sonora and Godfrey looked through his

telescope and suddenly exclaimed “Ho, ho, a

boojum, definitely a boojum!”

The name boojum comes from the Lewis

Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark,”

which describes boojums as mythical beings

found in a desolate far-off region. Most of the

information we know about the boojum tree

habitat and ecology was described in the work of

the late Dr. Robert Humphrey “The Boojum and

Its Home.” In honor of Dr. Humphrey’s

fascination with boojums and the republishing of

his classic 1953 article “The Desert Grassland,

Past And Present” in Fire Ecology (Volume 11, Issue 2, 2015), this newsletter will highlight the boojum tree

(Fouquieria columnaris).

The Boojum tree (also known as cirio, Spanish for candle) is a prehistoric-

looking species native to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico and two

isolated populations on Isla Angel de la Guarda in the Gulf of California and a

small area in Puerto Libertab in the state of Sonora. Long renowned for its

attractive strangeness, boojum trees are an important species in social and

economic contexts. They are considered a charismatic regional symbol, a

horticultural curiosity, a decorative wood, and a local construction material.

Boojum trees resemble an upside-down light gray-yellow carrot. They have a

thick, central trunk that is often over 10 m tall (and the largest recorded was

>26 m tall). Boojums have a several centimeter thick pith and patches of soft,

water-storing cells within the wood and bark, which can cause the trunk to be

nearly three-quarters of a meter in diameter. The surface of the boojum trunk

has a rock-like texture that appears to deter rodents from eating the juicy inner

tissue. Their leaves are smaller than the closely related ocotillo

(Fouquieriaceae family) and persist for months. Tubular creamy yellow

flowers appear regularly in summer and fall and are typically pollinated by

insects. The top of the boojum trunk or branching stems can arc and form

loops into strange formations during its life span.

Page 10

Photo credit: Harlow Gardens Plant of the Week

Cirio Near Las Tres Virgenes

Volcano, Baja California (1966) by

Eliot Porter

Plant of the “Week”...continued

Volume 8, Issue 4

Living in an arid environment, boojums are well adapted to low rainfall.

They generally get less than 120 mm of precipitation per year, but can

survive 5 years or more without any rainfall. They grow very slowly,

about 3-4 cm in a year with good rain. Growth occurs during cooler

weather, when water is available. Boojums are often restricted to an

area close to the coast, suggesting some relationship to a marine-

influenced climate. Relative humidity from moisture-bearing winds that

are common year round in Baja likely aid in the survival, germination,

and establishment of boojums. Boojums are long lived plants and may

take 50 to 100 years from germination until the plant produces its first

flower. It is common to find individuals that are older than 500 years

old and some can live for over 700 years.

While boojums

are not a

common rangeland plant in Arizona, they are a

landmark of the Baja coast. They commonly grow

in loose associations with other endemic plants of

the Sonoran Desert, such as the elephant tree,

datillilo (a tree-like yucca), and giant cardon cactus.

The Dr. Seuss-like boojum tree can be seen at many

places around the state including Boyce Thompson

Arboretum State Park, Phoenix Botanical Gardens,

and on the University of Arizona campus in the

Joseph Wood Krutch Cactus Garden.

References

Escoto-Rodriguez, M. and S.H. Bullock. 2002. Long-term growth rates of cirio (Fouquieria columnaris), a

giant succulent of the Sonoran Desert in Baja California. Journal of Arid Environments 50: 593–61.

Humphery R. R. 1974. The Boojum and its home. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Humphery R. R. 2001. Boojum. A tree grows in Baja. Wildflower 17: 20–22.

Humphrey R.R. and D.B. Marx. 1980. Distribution of the Boojum Tree (Idria columnaris) on the Coast of

Sonora, Mexico as Influenced by Climate. Desert Plants 2(3).

Page 11

Adolescent boojum on UA Campus

Photo courtesy of the UA Campus Arboretum (1932)

Boojums in front of the former Student Health building

The Rimrock Report

Lisa’s Class is Outside Today “Campers and Cow Pies”

It’s interesting how Extension works – you typically end up meeting new contacts when you least expect it.

Case in point: Chris and I attended the Diablo Trust land management group’s annual meeting earlier this

spring to talk about our upcoming drought management workshops, and came away with a new opportunity for

Range Rocks! collaboration. While at the meeting we were introduced to members of Friends of Camp Colton,

an organization that supports Flagstaff Unified School District’s environmental education center.

I saw this as a great opportunity to collaborate with a STEM based outdoor education program that would also

help grow the Range Rocks! program in Northern Arizona. Up until now, we have been focusing on working

with schools mainly in the Verde Valley area. This natural partnership providing range science activities to a

STEM based outdoor education program also allowed us to focus on working primarily with a younger

audience.

As I have mentioned before, research is showing the benefits of providing hands-on learning opportunities to

youth at a younger age. The Range Rocks! program originally began with a focus on high school

programming, but as time goes on we are adapting to fit the shifting paradigm to incorporate range science

lessons appropriate for a younger audience. Although we have provided Range Rocks! lessons to various age

groups at Oak Creek School and NRCWAY and Hopi youth camps, working with Camp Colton would allow

us to gain valuable experience working exclusively with 6th graders for six weeks.

Friends of Camp Colton put me in contact with Mary Giannola, the new camp director at Camp Colton. Mary

was interested in adding new content area to the camp’s existing outdoor educational programming. Enter

Range Rocks! We shared with her the scope of the Range Rocks! program and invited her to visit our booth at

the Arizona SciTech Festival so she could get a better understanding of the tools and technology we used and

what we could add to her camp program. After visiting our booth, she agreed Range Rocks! would be a

fantastic addition to the current Camp Colton programming.

Sometimes the challenge is not finding new venues for a program,

but finding people who can deliver the content area on the given

dates. After looking at our busy fall schedules Doug, Chris and I

realized we would need all hands on deck and in true extension

fashion, we used this opportunity to collaborate with other Extension

offices in the area for support. Dave Brewer, Program Coordinator at

Coconino Extension, has over 30 years’ experience working with the

Forest Service and the Ecological Restoration Institute. Elisabeth

Alden, Assistant Agent from Mohave County and the Hualapai

Tribal Extension has extensive experience working with youth and

has worked at Camp Colton in the past. Both have been a

tremendous help this season.

Our Range Rocks! program consisted of a 2 ½ hour instructional

block in the morning, which was repeated in the afternoon for a new

group of campers, which allowed all campers to take part in a Range Rocks! lesson that day. Campers rotated

through three brief talks covering rangeland ecology, soils/soil profiles, and range animal nutrition. Range

Science is unique in that its content area can be both very broad and very specific and also fits well into the

STEM model currently being implemented in FUSD schools. We discovered each of our individual talks not

only provided new knowledge, but also reviewed previous knowledge and concept ideas taught in FUSD

Page 12

Dave Brewer finds a tarantula and shows it to

interested campers

Volume 8, Issue 4

Lisa’s Class is Outside Today....continued

science classrooms. Furthermore, we found our individual topic

areas overlapped each other a bit, which helped to demonstrate how

intertwined different range biology and systems are.

Most campers were already familiar with several basic science

concepts like photosynthesis, plant biology, soil composition and

food webs. We built upon these core concepts and introduced new

topics like range monitoring techniques, rangeland importance and

uses, soil horizons and forest ecology, ruminant animal nutrition

and the cutting-edge science behind cow patty composition. Yes,

you read that correctly.

After a short water bottle refill break

(its camp….DRINK MORE

WATER!) the campers were given the rules to the Range Rocks! Scavenger

Hunt. The campers were divided into small groups and given a set amount of

time to find 12 numbered flags hidden throughout the camp property, each of

which contained a question related to previous talks they had just heard. They

discussed the question and answered it as a group and we are happy to report

several groups answered all questions correctly! Not only did we assess student

learning, we also allowed fidgety 6th graders to burn off some energy in the

process – you have to love outdoor education!

Working with Camp Colton was an incredible learning experience (for us as

much as the campers, I’m sure) and we are looking forward to providing Range

Rocks! programming at Camp Colton again in the spring when the camp re-

opens to welcome other schools in and around the

Flagstaff area

For the past six weeks our team has enjoyed being

able to teach outside in the crisp autumn weather and

seeing excited students fidgeting with small sticks

and rocks yelling out “AAAAAYO” in response to a call for attention from camp

staff. (Their enthusiasm often requires a bit of redirection from patient camp staff

as it is the first time away from home for many campers.) The campers have

impressed us with their excellent behavior, willingness to learn and entertaining

random nuggets of information they feel compelled to share with the group that

may or may not be related to the discussion topic. Either way, they kept us on our

toes!

I’m sure each of us has felt that twinge of pride when a camper repeats something

they have learned during one of our range science talks. I wish I could be a fly on

the wall when the kids get home and mom and dad ask “so honey, what did you

learn at camp?” If their answer has anything to do with describing the consistency

of a high protein low fiber cow patty to them over dinner, I will know I did my job!

Page 13

One camper records ruminant

digestion notes in his camp journal

A future artist draws a ruminant

digestive system in his camp journal

A group answers a scavenger

hunt clue

Just me talking...

The University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment V Bar V Ranch 2830 N. Commonwealth Drive Suite 103 Camp Verde, AZ 86322

Phone: 928-554-8991 Fax: 928-554-8996 Cell: 928-821-3222 E-mail: dougt@cals.arizona.edu Web: http://cals.arizona.edu/aes/vbarv/ Note: Please email me if you would like to be added to the “mailing” list for this newsletter.

The view from the Rim

Till next time,

Doug

Teddy Roosevelt had a lot to say about western rangelands and the life they provide. Here are a couple of pertinent ones:

"I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life

on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance,

hardihood, and the value of instant decision...I enjoyed the life to the full."

"In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely

unparalleled throughout the rest of the world…. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it.

The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again…” Me and ol’ Willie have been burning it up

lately. You know you have been driving through Phoenix too much when you start to recognize vanity plates

on I-10. I have had the same hotel room on several trips to Tucson and the waitresses at KG’s Westside Café

on Grant have started calling me one of the regulars. Oh well. Between meetings, camps, workshops, trying to

get an animal feeding study going and a lab set up, travel is just what is required. Just part of the glamorous

extension lifestyle. Yes, we are now starting a sheep and goat diet chemistry:fecal spectra study at the Campus

Ag Center in Tucson. This is an undergraduate honors thesis project for Sophie Leone. We will do a validation

test of the existing Gan Lab small ruminant NIRS calibrations and evaluate the effectiveness of using domestic

animals fed range diets, as surrogates for developing diet quality calibrations for wild animals. As you can see

from Lisa’s article this issue, we spent a lot of time up at Camp Colton near Flagstaff with 6th graders in

September. This was a great time and a new direction for Range Rocks! Many thanks to Elisabeth Alden

(Mohave Co./Hualapai ext.) and Dave Brewer (Coconino Co. ext) for tag teaming with Chris, Lisa and myself.

I am not sure who learned more, us or the kids. Jeff Schlau and I also participated in the third year of the Hopi

Ranch Intern program a couple weeks ago. Thanks Pat Browning for putting that together. I think it is having

an impact. The range crew helped out with fall cattle works on the V Bar V. Fall range monitoring is getting

into gear. Chris will be out and about on several northern Arizona ranches in the next few weeks. We just

started collecting the second year of range data on our Cedar Flat juniper treatment project this past week. UA

Tierra Seca members Joey Dahms and Emilio Corella came up from Tucson and joined the V Bar V range

crew, Sue Smith (grad student Utah State), Iric Burden (NRCS) and Steve Cassady (AZ G&F). Summer

meeting for AZ SRM was good as usual, looking forward to Yuma in the winter. Dan Faulkner, Jim Sprinkle

(before he left for Idaho…) and I hosted a group of ruminant nutritionists on the ranch back in August. We

celebrated the 20th anniversary of the V Bar V as a UA facility at Ranch Explorer Day in August. It was great

to have president Hart and CALS leadership (past and present) in attendance. I am heading to Brazil in a

couple weeks to present a paper at the international NIRS conference, followed by a week in Texas to guest

lecture at A&M and do a VGS workshop at Welder Wildlife Foundation with our own Del Despain, Lori Metz

(NRCS) and Judith Dyess (USFS). Looking forward to the week after Thanksgiving and my first ever elk hunt

in November. Well that’s about it. Christmas will be here before you know it.