{"id":12352,"date":"2021-03-21T06:15:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T06:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/?p=12352"},"modified":"2024-08-05T16:06:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T16:06:56","slug":"habitat-restoration-on-the-lower-san-pedro-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/live-cleaner\/habitat-restoration-on-the-lower-san-pedro-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Habitat Restoration on the Lower San Pedro River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Program:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Lower San Pedro <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pastureland Conversion\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Location:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Lower San Pedro River Wildlife Area, Arizona<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Goals:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Groundwater Conservation &amp; Management\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wildlife &amp; Habitat Protection\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The San Pedro River is the last major undammed river in the American Southwest. Called one of \u201cAmerica\u2019s Last Great Places\u201d by Life Magazine, it runs for 140 miles through the Sonoran Desert from northern Mexico to southern Arizona, where it meets the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado. This area is home to a variety of unique wildlife including the jaguar, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">coatimundi, and ringtailed cat, as well as more<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than 300 species of birds, including the endangered Western yellow-billed cuckoo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, the San Pedro River hosts more than 2\/3 of the avian diversity in the U.S. along its banks, making it a critically important wildlife area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the last few decades, rapid development and population increases in Southern Arizona have significantly increased groundwater pumping along the river, decreasing the river\u2019s flows by as much as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/businessforwater.org\/projects\/lower-san-pedro-river-wildlife-area\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">40% since 1940<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Large portions of the San Pedro are now going dry, negatively impacting thousands of acres of riparian forests and wildlife along the river.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ECOS provides support to the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Arizona Land and Water Trust (ALWT) and the Arizona Game and Fish Department <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to help restore and improve the natural hydrology and habitat along a seven-mile long stretch of the river known as the Lower San Pedro River Wildlife Area (LSPRWA).<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This partnership is helping convert over 100 acres of agricultural fields historically planted with corn and wheat and watered from wells to native grass pasturelands. Native grasses are adapted to the soil and their deep roots allow them to store water gathered mostly from rainfall, eliminating the need for water to be pumped from the river. The ALWT estimates at least 710 acre-feet of water will be saved in the first six years of the phased crop conversion, with as much as 610 acre-feet per year thereafter. The grasses will help capture surface water, help restore the water table, and improve overall water quality while providing protective habitat areas for wildlife, including the hundreds of nesting and migratory birds on the San Pedro\u2019s fly path.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019re honored to support the work of restoring and protecting the LSPRWA, ensuring it will continue to sustain the broad array of bird and wildlife that attracts visitors from across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Program: Lower San Pedro Pastureland Conversion\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Location: Lower San Pedro River Wildlife Area, Arizona<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":12353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[525],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24690,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12352\/revisions\/24690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}