People who live in the Catalina Foothills have watched the steady encroachment of buffelgrass across these slopes and through their neighborhoods. Last year we received a grant from the National Forest Foundation to reach out to the community about the dangers of buffelgrass, to start a volunteer buffelgrass control group, and to hire youth crews to come out after the rains to help us battle this invasive plant. It has been so rewarding to work with this community, helping folks understand the problem, showing them how to identify the plant, and teaching them what they can do to help. Even more satisfying (because it was outside and with a great group of people) was helping to organize a volunteer manual control buffelgrass crew. From October 2017 through May 2018 we met in Pima Canyon twice a month to dig out buffelgrass through the morning hours. The terrain was rocky, sometimes steep and rife with saguaro, cholla, and other pokey plants. To dig out buffelgrass we paired up into groups of two and one person would hike out with a 20 lb. digging bar while the other carried a rock hammer. The buffelgrass was quite dense in most areas that we worked and the digging bar was the tool of choice. It is important to get this bunchgrass out by the roots so one person would hold the grass by the top, pulling it out of the way while the other person would use the bar to pry out the grass. We would shake the remaining soil out of the roots and then stack the grass in a lattice formation to limit the spread of the seeds and subsequent sprouting.
The best apart of this endeavor was the enthusiasm and dedication of the volunteers. The people that have chosen to give their time in this way come from many different backgrounds. Some have just moved here and want to learn, others have lived here for decades and already know what a menace buffelgrass is. When you go out and spend a few hours on the hillside with a digging bar and rock hammer, you can see the difference that it makes to at least that small spot. We all loved uncovering and “freeing” young saguaros from the stranglehold of buffelgrass. We had the opportunity to see interesting plants and animals while we are out there. One volunteer often brought binoculars and we would take breaks and look at big horn sheep on the rocks. We saw numerous snakeskins, coyote and deer scat, a murder of crows, many different birds’ nests, and packrat middens stuffed full of cholla segments. One old saguaro skeleton had a perfectly preserved boot (the hard shell that the saguaro builds when it is damaged by birds making nests in the cactus) and we awed over the many generations of birds that must have been raised in it.
When we began this endeavor in October, we would wear extra layers in the morning until we warmed up with the work and the day, but by the time we stopped going out in May we were starting at 6:30 and making sure to bring a lot of water! Whenever I describe pulling buffelgrass it always sounds hard and arduous, but I don’t think that I am alone in saying that it is actually a lot of fun. Working outside in this place of immense beauty, with other people that care, what could be better? We have not cleared all of the buffelgrass out of Pima Canyon, but we have saved hundreds of saguaros and many, many other plants, and in the process we learned a lot about our desert backyard, about ourselves, and about each other.
* https://tucson.com/news/local/bighorn-sheep-surviving-possibly-thriving-in-tucson-s-catalina-mountains/article_3123e685-d61e-5a52-857e-20513dfbafb2.html