Conservationists chart livestock damage at San Pedro River preserve

A long-awaited roundup could soon get underway to remove stray cattle from a sensitive portion of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, but conservationists say inaction by federal authorities has already allowed substantial damage to Arizona's last free-flowing river.

On Monday, the Center for Biological Diversity released the results of a recent ecological survey that found widespread impacts from cattle across 39 miles of the San Pedro River, Babocomari River and St. David Cienega within the conservation area.

Surveyors documented water fouled with cow feces and streamside habitat trampled or stripped bare of vegetation in places where cattle are prohibited year-round.

On April 5 alone, survey participants counted 59 cows along an 8-mile stretch of the conservation area between state Highway 90 and the Hereford Road bridge over the river.

The Tucson-based center and other environmental groups have repeatedly sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the agency in charge of the conservation area, for allowing livestock grazing in parts of the river preserve and failing to keep stray cattle out of areas where they are not permitted.

“You’ve got ranchers who know there won’t be any penalties, and land managers who just don’t care,” said Robin Silver, cofounder of the Center for Biological Diversity. “They’re just in the business to serve cattle grazing. The San Pedro is what suffers.”

Roundup scheduled this weekend  

The center’s new survey comes as one nearby rancher prepares to gather stray cows from along the river.

The roundup is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting, said June Lowery, spokeswoman for the BLM’s Gila District Office in Tucson.

The bureau is providing the rancher with “administrative access to aid the removal of unauthorized cattle” and might have to close some parts of the conservation area during the operation “for safety reasons,” Lowery said.

The bureau recently posted a notice about the upcoming roundup at the San Pedro House, a volunteer-run visitor center for the conservation area along Arizona Highway 90, east of Sierra Vista.

The advisory warned visitors to watch out for horseback riders, low-flying helicopters and “unfriendly animals,” including cattle, but did not include a specific date or location for the roundup.

The Friends of the San Pedro River, which operates the visitor center, has since announced that the San Pedro House will be closed and the gate to the property locked on Saturday. All events scheduled there that day have been canceled.

E. coli contamination cited

Conservationist Cyndi Tuell thinks the bureau should also be warning visitors about another livestock-related hazard: E. coli contamination from cow feces.

She said the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality lists long stretches of the San Pedro and its tributary, the Babocomari River, as “impaired” because of E. coli, but little is being done to clean it up or alert the public.

“Someone built a rope swing out on the San Pedro River,” said Tuell, Arizona and New Mexico director for the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project. “There are kids playing out there all the time.”

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Tuell’s organization has joined the center in challenging livestock grazing in the conservation area. She wasn’t involved in the recent habitat survey, but she said the results match what she has seen out there herself.

“There is no spot untouched by livestock in the SPRNCA,” she said. “There are cows everywhere, and they’re not supposed to be there.”

Silver doesn’t expect the upcoming roundup to do much to fix the problem, either.

He said river advocates considered trying to capture the cattle themselves, but it seemed like a waste of time. Until the BLM repairs the fences needed to keep livestock away from the river, “the cows will just be right back there,” he said.

Court order 'didn't really change anything'

The center sued the BLM in October 2021 over the stray cattle issue, and the two sides agreed to a settlement in August designed to address the center’s concerns and speed up the bureau’s response to reports of unauthorized livestock activity.

Since then, though, Silver has lodged more than 80 complaints about cows where they do not belong. His most recent report to the bureau on Monday included photos and GPS coordinates for a cow that was discovered dead in the water along the river north of Highway 82, near the ghost town of Contention.

“The court-ordered settlement didn’t really change anything,” Silver said. “We’re going to go back into court. I don’t know what else to do.”

Ultimately, he wants the conservation area to be transferred from the BLM to the National Park Service so it can be protected as Congress intended.

The almost-57,000-acre preserve 80 miles southeast of Tucson was established in 1988 to protect the San Pedro as it flows north across the U.S.-Mexico border on its winding route to the Gila River near Winkelman.

The ribbon of water supports marshlands, grasslands and groves of cottonwood, willow and mesquite that attract more than 530 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, including several that are listed as threatened and endangered.

Legal challenges are also expected over the bureau’s recent decision to issue 10-year extensions for a handful of grazing leases within the conservation area.

Those leases will allow up to 180 cows to graze in four areas comprising about 12% of the preserve.

Tuell said her organization plans to appeal the decision on the grounds that any grazing goes against the bureau’s congressional mandate to conserve, protect and enhance the conservation area.

“I feel like they’re breaking the law and they know they’re breaking the law, and they just don’t care about that or about public sentiment,” she said.

The BLM’s Lowery declined to comment on the grazing lease extension, citing bureau policy against discussing what she called “active litigation.”