PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Natural History

In May 1968, Zion's Park Naturalist Barbara Lund identified 49 different bird species in the monument, including the broadwing hawk, considered rare for the area. Christmas bird counts for the Audubon Society were conducted in the Pipe Spring area during 1969, 1970, and 1971. Park Aid Konda Button and Barbara Lund identified a total of 39 species in 1969. Robert Foster reported 27 species counted in December 1970. The 1971 bird count, also by Foster, identified 16 species. [2240] In 1973 Park Historian Rick Wilt began cataloguing the area's birds. By the time of his transferal to Badlands National Park in November 1974, Wilt had counted 201 bird species. [2241]

In late spring 1975, Research Geneticist E. Durant McArthur (U.S. Forest Service) visited Pipe Spring and made an informal inventory of plants located along the monument's nature trail and "in the flat area just west of the Headquarters building" (visitor center). He later provided a list of these plants categorized under the headings of trees and shrubs, cacti, forbs (weeds and wildflowers), and grasses. [2242] In January 1978, the Soil Conservation Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture) submitted a similar report to the Park Service, entitled "The Flora of Pipe Spring National Monument." The report included a list of plants located within the monument, not including "horticultural introductions such as many of the trees and shrubs used in landscaping." [2243]