Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch Threatened and Endangered Species Management and Monitoring

Grasslands once covered over one quarter of Arizona, but drought, climate change, development, invasive species, irresponsible land use, and more have left only one third of this once vast sea of grass in healthy condition. When habitat is lost at this scale, the places that remain, places like the Research Ranch, become increasingly valuable to the birds and other wildlife that depend on them. 

When the Research Ranch was founded in 1968, the only species in the region with federal protection was the Gila Topminnow, a small fish that was listed by the Endangered Species Protection Act of 1967, a precursor to the modern Endangered Species Act of 1973. Today, the ranch is home to at least six protected species and contains designated critical habitat for five, including the threatened Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Not only do we protect habitat for these species, but we also offer a unique opportunity to study them in a controlled setting where questions critical to their recovery can be answered. 

Read on to learn more about how we’re putting the Research Ranch to work for threatened and endangered species. 

Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo Surveys 

The Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2014, and since 2015 we’ve been surveying for this imperiled bird within the riparian areas and oak woodlands of the Research Ranch. Surveys from 2014 to 2024 were limited and sporadic, but in 2025 we launched a five-year, coordinated effort to better understand how and when this species uses the Research Ranch. To learn more about this ongoing study, check out our 2025 annual report.  

Safe Harbor Sites 

While most of the threatened and endangered species that call the Research Ranch home need nothing more than protected habitat to thrive, others need a helping hand. The neediest among them are our aquatic species, namely the Desert Pupfish and Chiricahua Leopard Frog. Once common in the springs and waterways of southeastern Arizona, these animals are having an increasingly difficult time in today's hotter, drier climate. Making things worse, what little habitat remains is often occupied by non-native predators and competitors like American Bullfrogs and Green Sunfish. 

To overcome this challenge and bring these species back to the Research Ranch, the ranch entered a collaborative arrangement known as a Safe Harbor Agreement with the Arizona Game and Fish Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Through this agreement, we have worked together to transform the ranch’s old livestock infrastructure - pumps, basins, and tanks - into ponds and artificial wetlands. Not only do these waters serve as refugia for these species and as study sites for visiting researchers, but they also act as source populations from which our agency partners can harvest animals for repatriation elsewhere on the landscape.