An endangered flower in Arizona might rescue an endangered river

In a hushed corner of southern Arizona, sunlight glints off an emerald-colored plant with resplendent helmetlike flowers and the stature of a spindly adolescent. Called the Arizona eryngo, it’s a member of the carrot family that can top five feet in height and feeds pollinators ranging from hummingbirds to honeybees. It’s also among the rarest plants on earth, clinging to existence in two precarious Arizona wetlands known as ciénagas. One of those ciénagas is here on the edge of the San Pedro River, a waterway that’s also fighting for its life.

The Arizona eryngo was once known to exist throughout New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Mexico, but today there are only four population zones, per the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Two population zones are in southern Arizona and two survive in Mexico. The flower once also lived around New Mexico’s southwest bootheel region, but is now believed to be extinct there.

More than 95 percent of the cienega wetland habitats have been lost. After years of petitioning (and a lawsuit) by environmentalists, the eryngo will become an officially protected species next month.

The Plant and the River story from The Natural Resources Defense Council.

Saving the Eryngo story from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Arizona habitat totals just 13 acres. Agua Caliente and La Cebadilla, east of Tucson, and Lewis Spring in the San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area.

La Cebadilla - I never knew how much barley was grown in AZ.

Interesting.

a reply to: ColeYounger

If the US can send billions of dollars to Ukraine for a show war, why can't the US spend billions of dollars to run a 20 feet in diameter pipeline from the great lakes to Lake Meade and other waterways and reservoirs in the west and south west? Its not like there would be any ecological damage if it started to leak... water.

Seems to me a read a LONG while back that the Endangered Species Act had been modified such that in questions of the "value" of an endangered species, the benefit to humanity would be weighed to determine how valuable that species was TO HUMANITY in relation to whatever action would cause it's extinction.

a reply to: NightFlight

Why should we sent water to the states who have no control on their water usage? Las Vegas, Arizona and places in California should’ve thought before they built golf courses and all kinds of water wasting attractions in the middle of the desert.
Why would you save something that clearly is not sustainable? So we can drain the lakes and cause another water shortage in other areas?

They can find their own water some other way. No one on Lake Superior will ever allow that pipeline to be built