When you hear about endangered species, do you think of giant pandas in China, Bengal tigers in India, or other large mammals from other places? Unfortunately, there are 19 endangered animals right here in the Sonoran Desert.

In the Sonoran Desert, animals are endangered for many reasons. The principal reason is because the animals are losing their habitat. In Pima County, we lose one acre of desert every two hours to development. Another important reason why animals are endangered is because humans are consuming a lot of water, drying up the rivers. Animals need this water to survive. In Pima County, there were once a lot of flowing rivers and right now there are very few rivers. Yet another reason why the animals are endangered in Pima County is because people are hunting them. Finally, animals are endangered in Pima County because of pest species or exotic species that are invasive and adversely affect habitat function and directly compete with native life. But, the good news is that we can prevent it.

Some people ask how we can protect the animals. The first step is getting information about animals because if you don’t know about the animals, how you can protect them? To protect the animals in Pima County, we need to protect the habitat of the animals. We need to save water in our house or use little water because the water that we use comes from rivers. Animals and plants need that water to survive. We can also grow more native plants in Pima County. Finally, we should not make more development in the animal habitats.

It’s sad that humans are the principal reason why animals are endangered here in Pima County. If humans are the principal reason that animals are endangered, then they also can find a solution and we can prevent this problem.