In the spring of 2019, the Jackrabbit Working Group (led by Kerry Baldwin and Dave Brown) was awarded a research fellowship to explore the diet of antelope jackrabbit. The antelope jackrabbit (Lepus alleni) is an iconic and relic desert grassland wildlife species in the Altar Valley; yet little research has been done on the jackrabbit in the previous 50 years. This study is generating information about the vegetation species needed by jackrabbits by testing the DNA of food the jackrabbits have eaten. Having a more extensive understanding of the diet and preferences of the antelope jackrabbit will help inform management decisions that could potentially impact habitat characteristics for the antelope jackrabbit and facilitate the development of best management practices that accomplish land management needs while protecting sustainable jackrabbit populations.

Morgan Pfander received the third Altar Valley Research Fellowship, designed to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Ms. Pfander was an independent consultant with a B.S. in Natural Resources and and B.A. in International Studies from the University of Arizona. She worked as a Wildlife Technician and Range Technician for the USDA Forest Service, BLM, and U.S. Geological Survey throughout the West. She was also trained in Data Entry, Analysis and Proofing. The goal of this fellowship was to create a bibliography of published and unpublished material on the Altar Valley, as identified in the Research Agenda that was created by the Alliance’s Scientific Advisory Board. The collection was included as the Altar Valley Collection in the international database of the Rangelands Network/Global Rangelands/Rangelands West; see globalrangelands.org. The Rangelands Network is an international consortium of 19 land-grant universities from 19 U.S. states, Australia, and Mexico that has created and maintains portals and a database of rangelands resources that includes more than “12,000 journal articles, websites, images, databases, videos, maps, reports, and decision making/educational tools.” Ms. Pfander surveyed professional journals, online databases and other resources for articles about, or of interest, to the Alliance, wrote a brief summary, and enter the summary and bibliographic information into the Altar Valley Collection of the Rangelands Network/Global Rangelands/Rangelands West. The Alliance continues to regularly add to the Altar Valley Collection.

University of Arizona cultural anthropology PhD student David Seibert was awarded the second annual Altar Valley Research Fellowship, designed to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Mr. Seibert worked closely with the Alliance as its Restoration Coordinator, and designed a project entitled “Collaborative Conservation through Erosion Control and Fire in Altar Valley.” He received extensive training in wildland fire behavior, policy, and management at the Wildland Fire and Incident Management Academy in Prescott, Arizona, and in hydrology, sedimentology, and watershed monitoring during a Rosgen Applied Fluvial Geomorphology workshop, held at the Watershed Conservation Research Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mr. Seibert applied the training and methods to ecological restoration projects designed by the Alliance. The primary goal of the project was to develop a suite of practices for conducting concurrent prescribed fire and erosion control planning, execution, and monitoring that also coordinated the needs of valley landowners with the efforts of Alliance partners such as Pima County, The Nature Conservancy, and the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

University of Arizona College of Life Sciences graduate student Greg Butler received the first Altar Valley Research Fellowship, a $5000 award to encourage scientific research in the Altar Valley watershed. Mr. Butler’s project was entitled “Evaluating the Effects of Grazing Land Conservation Practices on Southwestern Watersheds’ Socio-Economic Aspects of Producer Adoption”. The goal of the project was to develop web-based tools that estimate the combined effect of grazing land conservation practices and drought on watershed health. A computer-based tool called an Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool for Rangelands (AGWA-R) was used to provide information on the effects of grazing land conservation practices as well as simulated optimal combination of conservation practices based on specific watersheds.