Paths to Habitat (Bulletin 6)

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In this issue, we focus on Paths to Habitat — a collaborative effort to transform damage to abundance — and on the individuals and organizations who make it possible.

Reforming the Rogues: The Paths to Habitat Pilot Hits the Ground Running

If you’ve walked in the southeast corner of Rio Vista recently, you may have seen signs like this:

These signs mark the launch of Paths to Habitat — a collaboration in ecological maintenance and rehabilitation among Friends of Rio Vista, Strategic Habitat Enhancements (SHE), and Tucson Parks and Recreation (Tucson Parks).

As a Rio Vista supporter, you know that unauthorized (rogue) trails are responsible, in large part, for the deterioration of the park ecosystem. In 2019 and 2020, Tucson Parks and the Rio Vista Conservation Project joined forces to close rogue trails in two-thirds of the park. COVID-19 shut down further fieldwork in 2020 and 2021. But thanks to the Arizona Native Plant Society’s plant survey, a science-based restoration plan by Carianne Funicelli of SHE, the hard work of Tucson Parks’ operations and maintenance staff, and the support of generous donors, astute partners and advisors, and energetic volunteers, the pilot for Paths to Habitat is now building on previous closures in Trail Rehabilitation Area 2. This part of the park is one of the richest in both wildlife and native plants, but it also gets heavy use and is threaded with rogue trails.

In carrying out Paths to Habitat, we’re coordinating closely with Tucson Parks’ master-planning process for Rio Vista. Eventually, we hope to replace all the weathered sawhorses with barriers and signs that are sturdier but can be removed when the rogues are just a memory. We’ll also plant individuals of native species and shape the land gently around them to set them up for success.

After we installed the new signs in Area 2, Carianne seeded some of the rogue trailheads with seeds collected from monsoon germinators in Rio Vista last year.

We’re forming an Area 2 restoration team, and volunteer Ethan Ward has already begun placing mesquite brush (generously provided by Tucson Parks staff) on rogue trails. Planting of native species will take place in the fall; the monsoon rains so far give us hope that these plants will join the area’s self-starters in obliterating damage and creating new habitat.

What we learn from the Area 2 pilot will be invested in the next phases of Paths to Habitat. Please join us in making that investment.

Thank You, Rio Vista Community. You Make It Possible!

Paths to Habitat has been and will continue to be a truly collaborative effort, not just among Friends of Rio Vista, SHE, and Tucson Parks, but among all the members of Rio Vista’s human community. In particular, Friends of Rio Vista would like to thank the following:

• Carianne Funicelli and Dominika Heusinkveld of SHE, for gathering and sowing the seeds (both literal and figurative)
• Ann Jefferson, Sean Nicholson, Mike Hayes, and Tom Fisher of Tucson Parks, for approving and overseeing Paths to Habitat
• Richard Langdon and the Rio Vista maintenance crew of Tucson Parks, for providing mesquite brush
• Six caring donors, for funding the plan and fieldwork
• Gary Bachman, our new conservation advisor, for strengthening Paths to Habitat
• Kendall Kroesen of the Mission Garden, for 3 years of mentoring
• Ethan Ward of the Area 2 volunteer restoration team, for stepping up
• The Arizona Native Plant Society volunteers who conducted the foundational plant survey of Rio Vista
• Tucson Audubon Society staff, for reviewing and improving the Paths to Habitat plan
• Lorna Shopland Werntz of the Ivy Creek Foundation, our organizational advisor, for guidance on administration
• Melanie Campbell-Carter and Catlow Shipek, who were instrumental in organizing the 2019–2020 trail closures
• All the volunteers who set brush, sawhorses, and signs in 2019–2020
• Pinau Merlin, for inspiration and insight
• Mark’s Ace Hardware staff, for donating their time for sign preparation
• The wild inhabitants of Rio Vista, for sharing their home and their energy with us

Support Paths to Habitat