The Sonoran Desert is a place of staggering beauty and biodiversity—home to towering saguaros, tiny elf owls, hovering hummingbirds, colorful gila monsters, and many other uniquely adapted species. But it’s also under pressure from increasing temperatures, invasive species, habitat loss, and drought..

For over 70 years, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has been much more than a “museum.” It has been, and continues to be, a hub of science, conservation, and education—a place where animal and human educators inform and inspire you, desert plants immerse you in vibrant colors and fresh aromas, and rocks and minerals ground you, And behind the scenes, the Museum’s scientists, curators, and educators have been protecting species, preserving habitats, and shaping conservation across an entire region.

This is the story of how one remarkable institution has helped protect one of the most biologically rich deserts in the world, and how it continues to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world.

A Legacy Rooted in Action

From its earliest days in the 1950s, the Desert Museum’s founders Bill Carr and Arthur Pack weren’t content to simply display nature—they wanted to protect it. By the 1960s, the Museum was already making a mark in the scientific world. Researchers documented rare desert species, bred endangered animals in captivity, and even helped win protection for Isla Rasa in the Gulf of California—the nesting site for 95% of the world’s elegant terns and Heermann’s gulls.

In the 1970s, the Museum’s first full-time researcher, botanist Dr. Richard Felger, led groundbreaking work on Seri ethnobotany, desert-adapted crops, and sea turtle conservation. Field studies in the Gran Desierto in Sonora contributed to the protection of the Sierra Pinacate in Mexico.

The 1980s saw a deep dive into the desert’s past, with Dr. Thomas Van Devender using packrat middens to piece together the Sonoran Desert’s climate history. This wasn’t just academic curiosity—it was a new technique for understanding how ecosystems respond to change.

Starting in the 1970s, the Museum also participated in the Mexican Gray Wolf breeding program, producing a total of 26 pups, and helping to promote the survival of this keystone species. Today, the Museum continues to care for wolves that are part of the larger reintroduction program.

Pollinator Protectors and Habitat Champions

The 1990s brought Dr. Gary Nabhan’s Forgotten Pollinators Campaign, which raised the alarm about declining bees, bats, and butterflies in the Sonoran Desert—and their essential role in keeping both wild plants and our food supply thriving. This evolved into the Migratory Pollinators Program, tracking the epic journeys of bats, monarchs, hummingbirds, and doves along vital nectar corridors.

The Museum also made big discoveries: confirming the northern Sierra Madre Occidental as a global plant diversity hotspot, excavating a brand-new dinosaur species (Sonorasaurus, now Arizona’s state dinosaur), and breeding the rare San Esteban Island chuckwalla to ensure its survival.

Shaping the Landscape for the Future

In the 2000s, the Desert Museum helped establish the Ironwood Forest National Monument—129,000 acres of desert habitat—and Rancho Ecológico Monte Mojino, a private reserve in Mexico protecting the largest remaining tract of tropical dry forest in the country.

Not afraid to tackle tough environmental problems, the Desert Museum helped to found the Southern Arizona Buffelgrass Coordination Center, combating invasive plants that threaten to transform saguaro forests into fire-prone grasslands.

Science in Service of the Desert

Throughout its history, the Museum has blended field research with community action. Teams have worked with a variety of communities–from land managers in Mexico to community gardeners in Tucson, to provide or restore habitat for native wildlife, especially threatened or endangered species. They’ve documented biodiversity for new protected areas, removed invasive buffelgrass from places like Tumamoc Hill, and launched the Tucson Bee Collaborative to study and protect the region’s astonishing diversity of 700–800 native bee species.

The Desert Museum has also become a refuge for imperiled aquatic species like the Sonoyta mud turtle, Gila topminnow, and Mexican garter snake—breeding them successfully to assure the survival of these and other species.

The Vision for the Future

Unfortunately, conservation will be a forever need. The Museum’s Science Vision lays out four key focus areas for the coming decades:

1. Saving Habitats – Coordinating invasive plant management, researching alternative treatment and management techniques, and creating strategies to keep desert landscapes healthy and fire-resistant.
2. Protecting Pollinators – Studying and conserving native bees, using both field science and community involvement, from DNA barcoding to participating in platforms like iNaturalist.
3. Resilient Food Systems – Preserving wild relatives of modern crops, expanding the use of native foods, and advising climate-resilient agriculture for the future.
4. Saving Species – Working with agencies and tribes to conserve threatened plants and animals, both at the Museum and in the wild.

With over seven decades of work, the Desert Museum proves that conservation is not just about saving plants and animals—it’s about protecting the intricate web of relationships that sustain life, including our own. Whether it’s ensuring pollinators can find food along their migratory paths, protecting our desert communities from fire, or training the next generation of conservationists, the Museum is building resilience for both nature and people.

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