Empire Ranch

The Historic Empire Ranch sits at the center of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, managed today by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This means it is open to the public. David and I saw a lot of campers. It’s beautiful land.

There is a colony of Prairie Dogs almost exactly six miles north of Sonoita, AZ out there on the Empire Ranch (lat/lon 31.773271, -110.625093 if you want to see it from the air). Black-tailed Prairie Dog Re-establishment has been underway here since 2008. There is an information sign, but you will learn by watching the cute little critters do prairie dog things.

We parked and walked over to the fence that keeps people back, and looked across the prairie with evidence that the colony was well established. There was a cluster of maybe a hundred mounds about 20 or 30 feet apart from each other, and prairie dogs running back and forth between them.

The BLM brings volunteers out here periodically to trap prairie dogs and check their health and count them, then release them again. That’s what the traps are for.

Black-tailed Prairie Dog habitat occupies most of what is the United States. We overlap. They were numerous before European settlers came, but were wiped out when farmers worried that they would cause problems for their farms and livestock. With further study, however, surprise surprise – it turns out they are good for the land and even good to co-habitate with livestock. So now they are being reintroduced. All of the prairie dogs we saw had either been placed here by humans or descended from those placed here by humans.

We found another little cutie stuffing her mouth full of twigs and grass it looked like. Maybe building a nest? It was Springtime after all, so maybe it was time to get ready for baby prairie dogs. All the photos in the slideshow are her.

It was very cold and windy on that exposed, raised area where the colony was. The rodents didn’t seem to mind, but it was uncomfortable for humans. We got back into David’s Jeep to head farther south to the next location through the beautiful prairieland of southern Arizona. David spotted antelope. There are about 160 Sonoran Pronghorn in Arizona, and about 240 in Mexico.

The Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope can run 60 miles an hour and thus is the fastest land mammal in North America. I am grateful that these held still. This is an endangered species and protected by the U.S. government. Military personnel at the nearby base will actually look out for pronghorns and if they are present, will delay or move their artillery and bombing maneuvers.

That morning we had been in Madera before we arrived at the Empire Ranch. We headed next for Patagonia, which I could have sworn was in South America, ha ha. It turns out that Patagonia is an adorable little town near the Mexico border.

Bird count: As of noon on my fifth day in Arizona, the bird count was still at twenty-six.