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- All Subjects: Regional planning
- Creators: Rosen, Philip C.
- Creators: Regan, John J.
- Creators: Shaw, William W.
Evaluates the conservation significance of county-owned properties in Avra Valley, specifically with regard to Priority Vulnerable Species and the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
Because the West Branch area has been left alone, it has a chance to recover and become a part of the larger Paseo de las Iglesias project, and a cornerstone of a more extensive effort at ecological restoration involving the mesic coorridors of Pima County, the Santa Cruz, Rillito, and Pantano.
This study by DR. Philip Rosen stands as one of the most impressive, given the scope of the author's knowledge, and it is one of the most ingenious, given the proposed concepts for restoration and protection of native fish and frogs within the urban Tucson Basin.
If one species had to be chosen to preserve and restore, perhaps it should be cottonwood. Cottonwood-willow forests, where they exist and are healthy, indicated the presence of a viable riparian area, which is in turn the key to conserving great proportions of our native species. A reflection of the dire status of our riparian systems is that the Sonoran cottonwood-willow and Sonoran mesquite-cottonwood forests.
To facilitate discussion about which species might be considered for protection, a series of in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the local science community who have expertise in the areas of birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, plants and plant communities, and reptiles and amphibians.