[Srm] presentation about the Santa Rita this Wednesday

[Mcclaran, Mitchel P - (mcclaran)]

Hi Everyone,


You might be interested in this presentation by Mark Heitlinger, the Manager of the Santa Rita Experimental Range.  Mark brings a mixture of historic and contemporary perspectives to understand where we have come from and where we might be going with research and education activities on the Santa Rita.


See below for details,


How Arizona cattle, catastrophe, and convictions created the Santa Rita Experimental Range in 1902 and exceptional opportunities for 21st century science
SPEAKER: Mark Heitlinger, Range Manager, Santa Rita Experimental Range, University of Arizona
DATE: Wednesday, April 8, 2015
TIME: 3:00-4:00 pm
LOCATION: Marley Building, Room 230
ABSTRACT:
In 1903 a block of ~50 square miles was fenced out of the Arizona range (banner photo). It was unprecedented on Western federal lands, then administered as unregulated commons. UA professors in the College of Agriculture, beginning more than a decade earlier, had identified the causes of range destruction and indicted open range as a "ruinous" land management regime. They witnessed the demise of ~1/2 of the cattle herd in Pima County in a single year and ~1/3 of the Arizona herd in a decade. Early eco-hydrologists, they observed arroyo formation, measured sediment loads in washes, and constructed check dams to restore gullies. And they exercised moral convictions by lobbying for creation of a federal reserve to study rangeland rehabilitation and demonstrate "sustainable" grazing "on a convincing scale." The ~50 square mile fenced-out area was in the Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER), established in 1902, with the purpose that such an economic and ecological disaster should never recur. We examine the now largely forgotten insights, inspiring story, and the legacy these UA professors bequeathed: the oldest continuously protected and studied rangeland in the world. A sample of SRER science reveals how SRER studies changed 20th century wildlife and resource management, and can add the breadth of decades-old data to 21st century research.



Cheers,

Mitch McClaran
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