Word: deserter
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...plight as the impetus to craft a comprehensive conservation plan. He assembled an unlikely coalition of developers, Realtors, ranchers and environmentalists and drew up a blueprint that would protect not just the pygmy owl but a total of 55 threatened species--while leaving room for housing development in nonsensitive desert regions. "We believed it was better to be at one table rather than have a huge fight," says Bill Arnold, one of the county's biggest Realtors. "Everyone was a winner...
...Pima County board of supervisors ratified the plan, dubbed the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, and last year the county proposed a $174 million bond issue to buy up open land for conservation. The measure passed easily, with 65% voter approval. Under the plan, the county allows concentrated growth in designated areas while preserving swaths of open space in environmentally sensitive core areas in a large ring around Tucson. That open space preserves the characteristic desert vistas while providing corridors for wildlife to move around the edges of housing areas. Huckelberry aims to preserve 263,880 acres in that...
...streetlights on the roads, and half the land is preserved as open space for wildlife habitat. The houses are built in clusters of four sharing a single driveway and auto court and are designed to be inconspicuous: all exterior walls must mimic the brown and ocher tones of desert soil...
...Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan was written to conserve the region's biodiversity, but Huckelberry concedes that even the most careful planning cannot forestall all the threats that man poses to the desert. Domestic dogs and cats, for example, can wreak havoc on native species of birds and small mammals. One of the main reasons for the pygmy owl's decline was predation by house cats...
...posed by buffel grass, an invasive species that was originally imported from Kenya to feed cattle. Adapted to being trampled by elephants and capable of spreading widely with little water, buffel grass has migrated west from the rangelands of Texas, bringing a new threat, fire. To conserve water, most desert species in the Southwest grow far apart, making it hard for fires to spread. Buffel grass grows easily in dry soil, forming a carpet of dry, flammable stalks that burns very hot after a lightning strike and can engulf cacti, yucca, ocotillo and the paloverde trees. "None of the native...