Saguaro National Park: Superintendent's 2009 Report on Natural Resources and Vital Signs

Saguaro National Park

This report is the first in what we hope will be a series of annual reports on Saguaro National Park’s natural and cultural resources, including the park’s “vital signs” of a healthy ecosystem. Like most national parks, Saguaro produced annual reports on natural resources, especially wildlife, during the first decades of the park. However, in recent years these reports have ceased as federal reporting has become more complex, research and monitoring has increased, and methods for communicating have changed. Nevertheless, there are many good reasons to summarize the current state of natural resources in Saguaro National Park in a single document. First and foremost is the growing need for information on plants, wildlife and other resources in national parks as these resources face new threats and managing them becomes ever more challenging. The rapid development of Tucson, changing land uses in the desert Southwest, dramatic increases in invasive plants, and climate change all have the potential to great change the biota of Saguaro National Park, and it is important that we keep track of these threats and monitor the resources that may be impacted by them. No less important is the need to provide information to a public – visitors, park neighbors, and virtual visitors from all over the world – that is very interested in Saguaro National Park, in the saguaro, and in the natural history of the Sonoran Desert. Finally, we believe that an annual report on natural resources can be helpful for future resource managers at Saguaro as a method for organizing information about the present conditions of the park in a format that will be useful many years from now. National parks are exceptional repositories of information gleaned from many years of careful observation and research. Too often we fail to learn from past studies and apply the lessons of those who came before us to present-day management decisions. Saguaro National Park was set aside in 1933 because of its scientific interest, especially because of the intrinsic interest of its plants including the saguaro cactus. In the decades since then research and monitoring at the park has contributed greatly not only to our knowledge of the saguaro, but to many other fields of science including geology, wildlife, and ecological restoration. This knowledge in turn has been passed on to visitors through interpretive programs, exhibits, books, educational television, and other media. It is our hope that this annual report can become part of and extend this tradition of science and education.