News

Jul 03, 2023

Arizona officials replenish wildlife water supplies during heat wave

Summer is on full blast in Arizona. In cities like Phoenix and Tucson, where record-high temperatures have been the unsettling norm for days, people are doing their best to avoid the heat and stay as

Summer is on full blast in Arizona. In cities like Phoenix and Tucson, where record-high temperatures have been the unsettling norm for days, people are doing their best to avoid the heat and stay as hydrated as possible.

It’s a different story for the state’s wildlife. When it’s hot and there’s no rain — which is the case so far this season — the Arizona Game and Fish Department keeps animals of all sizes and shapes alive by bringing water directly to them.

Using heavy-duty water trucks and helicopters, they replenish a network of man-made watering holes, or catchments, across the state to help protect Arizona’s 800 species of wildlife, from 500-pound elk to wee kangaroo rats.

“They definitely know when we’re coming,” said Jeremy Smith, AGFD water catchment manager. “They can smell the water.”

The agency has been doing this creature-saving work since the 1940s, but unusually intense heat waves, megadrought conditions and unpredictable seasonal rains over the past few years have put game and fish on full alert. As a result, the department’s fleet of heavy-terrain water trucks and helicopters, which drop water for thirsty creatures living in the state’s mountains, are on call beyond what’s been needed in the past.

“We’ve experienced 20 years of a terrible drought. I’m hearing that they’re not even using the term drought anymore, but the aridification of the Southwest. It’s of that magnitude now,” said Ed Jahrke, AGFD wildlife specialist and infrastructure manger.

“A bigger unknown and concern is the quality of the habitat,” he continued. “What happens if the food isn’t there? We can’t deliver groceries.”

The AGFD started deploying water shipments to fill its system of catchments spread across the state’s diverse habitats in late June. The future of the delivery schedule is dependent on the summer monsoon rains, which provide more than half the annual rain in many parts of the state. But since 2016, Arizona’s summer weather has been inconsistent. In 2020, the monsoon fizzled. Meteorologists called it a “nonsoon” season.

“We were delivering water all day long,” Smith said. “We were in scramble mode,” which meant “delivering 30,000 to 40,000 gallons of water a week.”

This year, summer hit hard in July when a heat dome covered the state — and much of the United States — with temperatures soaring upward of 118 degrees in the Phoenix area.

Still, Jahrke reports the animals are benefiting from a rainy winter that kept catchments full with storm runoff earlier in this year. While there has been an “uptick in water haul requests” from individual AGFD regions, “we’re not at a critical stage yet despite the record-setting heat.”

On a recent morning, Smith and his crew set off with three trucks loaded with 6,800 gallons for a site near Gila Bend in central Arizona, low desert country. It took about eight hours to travel there and back from headquarters in Phoenix and top off the tank using fire-grade nozzle hoses and water from standpipes near the canal that carries Colorado River water inland to cities and farms.

There are 3,000 catchments in these isolated, hard-to-access regions, half belonging to federal agencies, but all maintained by AGFD. The goal is to keep all the catchments full between winter rains and the arrival of the summer monsoon.

In the beginning, the wildlife water systems were designed to help the quail population and were nicknamed “gallinaceous guzzlers.”

Today, most of the catchments are 5,000-gallon cement basins that drain into a trough accessible in size and height to the largest and smallest visitors. Some can store as much as 10,000 gallons.

The cost of keeping animals hydrated in a warming environment is rising. A full-grown elk, for instance, drinks three to five gallons of water a day.

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On average, the annual cost of the program is $1 million, which covers vehicle wear and tear, catchment repairs and general upkeep. Four-wheel-drive water trucks cost $250,000 — Jahrke recently purchased four. Helicopter delivery is at least $10,000 a trip.

There are more than 150 staff members, contractors and volunteers, among them ranchers and others who live in the Arizona outback and deliver water on their own.

The department doesn’t receive tax money from the state general fund, instead relying on contributions from private donors, conservation and hunting foundations, and the public through the “Send Water” donation campaign.

To keep the program running, AGFD is revamping older catchments to make them more efficient, focusing on locations where runoff from rain and mountain snow is optimal and on ways to minimize evaporation. The lingering question is: How consistent will nature be tomorrow?

In the meantime, water deliveries continue. Robert Birkeland, an AGFD region field supervisor, hauls water out of Pinetop, pastoral high country about 200 miles northeast of Phoenix.

The round trip can take seven hours on rough, often unpaved, roads. “It is an exhausting, long day, but the drought is so unprecedented, we do what we have to do,” he said. “Climate change is real, we know that. What we’re doing is so important for the Southwest.”

On a recent visit, he confirmed the deliveries are helping the elk that frequent the catchment. Trail cameras captured a gang of the animals splashing around, most of them lactating mothers with their three- to four-week-old babies.

“There’s nothing more gratifying to see,” he said.

Our warming climate: In July, Phoenix set a national heat wave record for the hottest month ever in a U.S. city. Heat waves are ramping up the global burning of fossil fuels, as July will be Earth’s hottest month on record. Here’s why the sweltering heat wave isn’t moving anytime soon. Use our tracker to see your city’s extreme heat risk. Take a look at what extreme heat does to the human body.

How to stay safe: It’s better to prepare for extreme heat before you’re in it. Here’s our guide to bracing for a heat wave, tips for staying cool even if you don’t have air conditioning, and what to know about animal safety during extreme heat. Traveling during a heat wave isn’t ideal, but here’s what to do if you are.

Understanding the science: Sprawling zones of high pressure called heat domes fuel heat waves. Here’s how they work. You can also read more about the link between weather disasters and climate change, and how leaders in the U.S. and Europe are responding to heat.