Santa Rita Mountains COA

Potential Conservation Actions

1. Land and Water Protection

• Develop conservation easements on public or private lands in order to maintain and protect wildlife corridors.

2. Land and Water Management

• Continue maintenance of wildlife waters to mitigate drought and the effects of temperature extremes.
• Identify and conserve areas known as stopover and breeding habitats for migratory birds and support their full life-cycle conservation through international collaborations that address threats to their migration and wintering habitats in Mexico, Central America, and beyond.

• Remove non-native, undesirable, and/or invasive plant species. Monitor the success of removal efforts.

• Identify wildlife corridors essential to the movement of species between high-quality habitat blocks, especially areas that connect sky islands.
• Increase habitat connectivity by removing barriers and impediments to species movement. Modify pasture and boundary fences to meet wildlife-friendly criteria to allow safe wildlife movement or provide wildlife crossing structures to minimize wildlife/vehicle collisions.

• Manage for thinning and prescribed burns to create healthy habitats that are less prone to catastrophic wildfires and resilient to drought and insect infestations.

5. Law and Policy

• Work with local governments to incorporate wildlife protections and habitat connectivity into general plans.

7. External Capacity Building

• Collaborate with partners at different scales (e.g., statewide, regional, national, and international) to develop and implement management plans, conservation. agreements, recovery actions, research, management recommendations.
• Partner with mining industry to ensure environmental responsibility with any potential projects and minimize impacts to natural resources.

3. Species Management

• Improve management and restoration of agave species to provide resources and migration corridors for lesser long-nosed bat and other pollinator species.