Flora and Fauna News

Desert Famine
Continues

This Engelman Prickly Pear, Opuntia phaecantha,
was photographed in the Goldfield Mts. near Apache Junction,
Arizona on Aug. 3rd, 2002.

By Michael Plagens
Sonoran Desert Sciences

PHOENIX, Az. ----- Periods of sometimes generous rainfall have finally arrived in the Sonoran Desert allowing many shrubs and trees to produce a flush of new verdant growth. However, many plants have yet to get there fill after 9 nearly rainless months. Evidence the chlorotic and shriveled look of the prickly pear.

Without rain, even the hardy cactus struggles, and must forego flowering and fruiting. Normally by the first week in August the prickly pear is topped by an abundance of sweet, juicy, nutritious fruit. Not this year. And that mean that the many animals reliant on this resource will risk starvation. Coyotes, javelina, foxes, desert tortoise, birds and rodents are just some of the wildlife species that will be hurt by the lingering effects of the long drought.

PHOENIX, Az. ----- The winter rains of 2007 - 2008 were good and now many areas of the Sonoran Desert have received generous monsoon rainfall. The result is now a plentiful harvest of dark red fruits on Engelmann Prickly Pear. These cacti are rare at the elevation of Phoenix where it is actually too hot and dry for this species. Above 750 m elevation mostly north and east of the Phoenix area this cactus is more common - particularly on land that has been extensively used for ranching.

By the first week in August the prickly pears begin to ripen and offer an abundance of sweet, juicy, nutritious fruit for coyotes, javelina, foxes, desert tortoise, birds and rodents.

The red fruits of this Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmannii) are armed with an abundance of glochids - minute but exceedingly sharp and irritating spines. Amazingly these spines don't stop the fruit eaters, but human harvesters are advised to use tongs and not bare fingers. Photo taken Sept. 1st, 2003.