Saturday, November 2, 2013: Virgin River Canyon Campground, AZ.
“You lookin’ at me?” The observers become the observed.
Before leaving Zion
National Park this morning, we stop at the dump station to get rid of the
“stuff” we don’t want, and take on fresh water we do want. Now, this is a task we (Jack) do frequently,
but don’t usually mention. But today is
a little different. We notice that we
have observers sitting on the rocks above us watching intently as we go about
our (Jack’s) business. Normally, we are
the observers. Today, these little characters
turn the tables on us.
Our destination is Virgin River Canyon Campground on Arizona BLM Land.
We drive through St. George,
Utah and in short order cross the border into Arizona. The Virgin River Canyon Campground sits about
half way between St. George and Mesquite, Nevada. We are in the very northwest tip of Arizona. Our backyard view today is excellent with the
Virgin River just over the edge from our campsite! We don’t venture down to the river due to a recent
sighting of a cougar along the river.
Seeking out confrontation with a very large cat is not our idea of a fun
adventure.
What is all of this overhead activity?
As we set up camp we notice
a small plane circling the area and flying low along the mountain ridges. Later in the day, a helicopter makes repeated
fly-overs near the campground settling behind a hill not far from us, only to
rise again, head off into a canyon or over a mountaintop, returning again in 10
– 15 minutes. We wonder what they could
be up to.
Hilltop nature trail.
As we entered the
campground earlier we noticed a nature trail on the hilltop. We take the short hike from camp back up the
hill. We discover we are sitting on a
major fault line that is the transition between the Colorado Plateau stretching
eastward into Colorado and New Mexico ...
… And the Basin and Range
Providence of broken mountain ranges and basins to the west reaching to the
Sierra Nevada.
There are beautiful
specimen of Joshua trees, desert shrubs, many cactus species, and a variety of
flowering plants covering the rugged landscape.
There’s the helicopter again! Preparing to take off.
From our vantage point on
the hill we can see down into the area the helicopter has been landing. It lifts off … flies directly in front of us
… and zooms off into the distance.
The mystery is quickly solved – Migrating Desert Bighorn Sheep.
Walking back to our
campsite from the nature trail we stop and visit with a couple of guys, Dave
and Steve. Dave is from Phoenix and is a
volunteer with the Arizona Game & Fish Department. They are working on a study of migration
patterns of Desert Bighorn Sheep in the Virgin River Gorge. It seems the sheep get the urge to cross
I-15, and in doing so are struck and injured or killed by passing vehicles – in
the process drivers of those same vehicles suffer the same fate.
The basic concept of the study.
Early in the morning
spotters are flown out by helicopter to mountaintops across the area to watch
for sheep, along with the small plane that is ever-scouring the ridges
throughout the day. When a sheep is
spotted its location is called in and the helicopter takes off with “shooters”
on board.
The sheep is pinpointed,
shot with a tranquilizer gun, and a net is dropped over it. The Game & Fish personnel exit the
helicopter, place a monitoring collar around the neck of the sheep, and release
it. At the end of each day, all the
spotters are retrieved from their lookouts high above the Virgin River Gorge. This requires several trips as spotters have
been posted throughout the gorge and surrounding area.
Ten days-worth of collaring
sheep and the migration monitoring process is underway. The goal is to
determine, based on migratory patterns, the best locations within the gorge to
build “sheep overpasses/underpasses” to force the sheep to create new patterns
for getting to the other side of the interstate highway.
Sunset at Virgin River Canyon.
The sun sets in the western
sky silhouetting the mountain ranges stretching as far as the eye can see ...
… Just as the last rays of
the sun gleam off the Colorado Plateau to the east.
And another wonderful day comes to a close. Be safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment