Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden recently joined an effort to salvage an endangered cactus species from an area where a new bridge is being built.
As reported in a recent edition of the DBG's Sonoran Quarterly, the effort was centered on the Arizona hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus arizonicus), which is found in no other U.S. states. A number of the cactuses were expected to be impacted by construction of a new bridge over Pinto Creek, on U.S. Route 60 between Globe and Superior.
The Arizona Department of Transportation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with the DBG, which created a salvage team and a plan for collecting and removing the cactuses. Doing so was a challenge because the cactuses were growing on 200-foot slopes covered with loose gravel and dense vegetation, the DBG said.
The collection effort took place over several days in July, when temperatures were over 100 degrees, the DBG said. In all, members of the salvage team rescued 22 cactuses, plus dozens of stem cuttings and thousands of seeds. Photographer Eirini Pajak, a frequent Arizona Highways contributor, documented the removal effort.
The DBG hopes the salvaged plants will be able to be returned to the Pinto Creek area in a few years, once construction of the new bridge is complete.