My brother Greg worked here for a time, tagging birds among many other duties, so he, along with the conservation program director Roger Cogan, gave us a tour as well as plenty of background info on the Ranch and the current political/environmental issues of the area. We also followed Greg around as he visited various strategically located critter cams to swap out batteries and memory cards–a volunteer duty he continues to fulfill with enthusiasm.
The Audubon A-W Research Ranch covers some 8,000 acres of relatively high elevation grassland near Elgin, Arizona, but it looks like it could have been beamed over direct from the great savannas of Africa. You almost expect to see herds of elephants, giraffes, antelope, wildebeests, and so on, grazing across the landscape.
What’s more, there are reports and pictures of at least one jaguar moving from northern Mexico into the surrounding mountains, which would be a wonderful development in this constant and depressing war of Busy Human Beans versus Ma Nature’s Ecosystem. Greg, with his various camera traps, has high hopes of catching an image of the jag within the boundaries of Research Ranch property at some point.
This austere landscape, of course, would look very, very different under snow or a massive monsoon thunderstorm, but here are two sample images of the current winter look on the day of our visit…
High Grasslands. Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona, 2016
The Watering Hole, #2. Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch, Arizona, 2016
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