The first ever Tortolita Preserve BioBlitz was a success on November 19, 2022! Hosted by Marana Parks and Recreation along with organizing partners including Arizona Master Naturalists, Arizona Game and Fish, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, and Tortolita Alliance, participants made 681 observations of 136 different species! The event included a series of "Mighty" (1 mile), "Major" (2 mile), and "Mega" (3 mile) guided observation walks led by experts. See below to explore the iNaturalist results in more detail and read about the history of this event.

Birth of a BioBlitz

…it started with two guys walking around in the desert

By Dave DeGroot, Cohort 2

During the Covid lockdown in 2020, I came across a 2,400-acre piece of desert northwest of Tucson called the Tortolita Preserve. It is being fenced off by the Town of Marana, with recreational use mostly restricted to folks on a perimeter trail: hikers, bicyclists, joggers, and horseback riders.

Ethan Fraijo and I were curious about the “interior” of the Preserve. We had time on our hands during the lockdown, and we started exploring the washes and cattle paths that crisscross the area. We took notes on the plants and animals we observed. Data we collected during our walks eventually caught the attention of five respected environmental/conservation organizations: Pima County Master Naturalists, Town of Marana Natural Resources, Tortolita Alliance, Arizona Game and Fish Dept. and the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection. And that attention morphed into plans for the Preserve’s first BioBlitz.

How did informal hikes by a couple of guys turn into a big bio-blitz?

Neither Ethan nor I saw it coming. Our initial reaction was that the land was dry and overgrazed. A little later, we began to see plants and animals that were still flourishing despite drought conditions and the cattle. We noticed the size of the chain fruit chollas, the vocalizations of the coyotes (often fairly close to us), the lines of leaf-cutter ants carrying leaf pieces, all kinds of lizards (including huge, bold iguana lizards), and occasional encounters with solitary velvet ants (Dasymutilla sp.) that are nicknamed “cow-killers.” Later we came upon a large puma latrine, a herd of javelina, a bobcat posing for my trail camera, mule deer, and four species of huge sphinx moths.

Then Ethan and I decided to organize and quantify our observations. With some advice from a PhD botanist, we created imaginary “transect lines” and inventoried all the plants and animals we would see within 6 feet of each line, on either side. We counted only species that we observed – no non-observed species went on our list unless someone else’s sighting was very well documented. Our master list quickly grew to 85 plants, 50 birds, a dozen mammals, 20 insects/arachnids, and a dozen reptiles, and it is still growing. Then we switched from hardcopy note-taking to documenting species with the iNaturalist app.

Next came a breakthrough (for us, anyway).

We shared our data with a fairly new, 700-member organization comprised mainly of folks who live in the vicinity of the Tortolita Preserve, whose mission is to conserve and protect the land. The organization goes by the name of Tortolita Alliance, and they are involved with both the Preserve and Wild Burro Canyon in the Tortolita Mountains. The interest of the Tortolita Alliance board was immediate. They invited Ethan and me to meet with board members. These volunteer board members were struck by the fact that a couple of amateurs, “citizen scientists,” could assemble hard data on their Preserve – and they realized that assembling valuable data wasn’t the exclusive domain of graduate school instructors and assistants, advanced degree candidates, or paid professionals. Three days later, board members trekked with us along one of our transect lines deep in the Preserve.

The Tortolita Alliance then decided to continue and expand the work Ethan and I had started – they began planning to involve volunteers in a larger-scale survey of the preserve. They floated the idea of a “citizen science survey” with the Town of Marana and its Parks and Recreation division – the entity that controls and manages the Preserve. Parks and Rec brought in the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, a well-known, respected organization that is involved in environmental causes in South Arizona. The coalition indicated an interest in a larger-scale survey of plants and animals.

I introduced Tortolita Alliance board members to Pima County Master Naturalists Jean Boris and Diana Holmes. With Alliance president Mark Johnson we hiked to noteworthy sites along the trails in the Preserve. That began a relationship between the two organizations, which has since expanded to include the three additional organizations mentioned previously. And as the November 19, 2022, BioBlitz took shape, interest expanded through membership lists and affiliations to include folks from other parts of Arizona.

Do Ethan and I regret that our amateur biodiversity survey has been taken out of our hands? No, not at all!

We are proud of the role we played in catching the attention of the other participants. We feel honored to have set in motion plans to understand and ultimately protect 2,400 acres of beautiful, struggling desert northwest of Tucson.