Calico Spring

Recreating outdoors offers numerous benefits, including improved mental health, enhanced cognitive abilities, and physical wellness. The Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area provides a refreshing escape from the neon culture of the nearby Las Vegas Strip, attracting both tourists and locals to its BLM-protected lands for activities like hiking, biking, climbing, and birdwatching, and more. However, there comes a point when recreation capacity exceeds what the habitat can sustain, leading to degradation of essential natural resources.

Desert ecosystems can take decades, or even centuries, to recover from damage, resulting in an endless combination of consequences, including soil degradation, loss of viable seed banks, wildfire, erosion, invasion by non-native plants, habitat fragmentation, and disruption of water flow. Restoration Ecology, a branch of biological science, seeks to expedite the  recovery process to address the rate of ecological loss.

Last year, Red Rock Canyon welcomed over 2.2 million visitors, with more than a quarter visiting the Calico Basin area. The human impact on this environment is evident, with garbage, noise, and a web of social trails disrupting regular ecosystem functions and diminishing the quality of each visitor's experience. As visitation continues to rise, the BLM Red Rock team of specialists is working to create, evaluate, and implement strategies to strike a balance. Outdoor recreation planners consider alternative ways to manage visitation, interpretation rangers promote positive outdoor ethics, field rangers build trail infrastructure, and scientists that  mitigate damage and research promising damage-preventing methods! 

Each restoration project is unique and requires a tailored plan within a broader spectrum of options. Techniques may include moving earth to create natural hydrology; spreading native seeds; planting shrubs grown in nurseries;  and establishing barriers to facilitate plant germination. We employ innovative technology and centuries-old Traditional Ecological Knowledge that local tribes wish to share with us. Erecting exclosures, or fenced areas to limit human activity, can be particularly effective in giving restoration efforts a chance to succeed. It is incredibly important share both successful and unsuccessful attempts so that it might help a scientist have even greater success in the future.

Our selected spring is especially important. It serves as a haven for wildlife that provides essential food and water, stores  vital soil nutrients and acts as a carbon sink, and hosts many threatened and endangered species. In desert environments, the rarity of surface water makes these species particularly vulnerable to disturbances that could lead to extinction. Calico spring embodies this delicate dynamic.

This spring is the sole home to a Critically Endangered flower and a unique lichen; their entire global populations are found behind this exclosure. The flower was classified as Critically Endangered due to its limited range, threats from over-recreation, and rapid habitat loss. Only  700 to 900 individuals exist and only one seedling has been found between 2021-2025.It is not the only rarity here: two plant species are unique to the Calico Basin; three more plants and at least two animal species are exclusive to Red Rock Canyon; an endangered flower found only within Clark County, and several other plants an animals found in the Spring Mountains and southern Nevada live here, too. 

A disproportionately high number of at-risk species are found at desert springs, and the choices of every visitor everyday impacts whether visitors will see these plants and animals in 100 years, 540 years, or even as few as 15 years from now. We hope to use this Chronolog Citizen Science Project to document changes to the biotic and abiotic components of this ecosystem over time. This data will inform the effectiveness of exclosure fencing and identify any additional management actions needed to protect these extraordinary and rare resources. With each photo shared, our optimism grows, and a solution to the loss of biodiversity becomes more tangible. Thank you for being a committed environmental steward and citizen scientist!