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Take Action for Tule Springs |
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We need you to call, send a letter, and/or e-mail Nevada’s five congressional representatives and ask them to make Tule Springs a national monument, managed by the National Park Service.
Tule Springs and the Upper Las Vegas Wash contain the single largest group of Ice Age fossils in the entire Southwest. It is also a critical historic migration corridor for desert bighorn sheep, which move through the area as they travel between the Spring Mountains and Desert National Wildlife Area.
Click here to find contact information for Senators Reid, Ensign and Representatives Berkley, Titus and Heller. Thank you.
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Why Does It Need Protection?
Kit Fox - photo by John Tull
Tule Springs and the Upper Las Vegas Wash contain the single largest group of Ice Age fossils in the Southwest, spanning geologic history from 7,000 to 200,000 years before the present. It is also a critical historic migration corridor for desert bighorn sheep, which move through the area as they travel between the Spring Mountains and Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
This area represents a key part of our programmatic work on Linking Landscapes for Wildlife. If we are successful in protecting Tule Springs, we will also protect important wildlife corridors and connectivity between four areas: The Desert National Wildlife Refuge, this new fossil beds national monument, Red Rock National Conservation Area and Spring Mountain National Recreation Area.
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Where is it?
Just north of Las Vegas, the proposed monument will become an integral component of the regional trail and open space system of local governments, facilitating the connection of the urban core with the natural federal lands surrounding the Las Vegas Valley. Plans for the regional trail system will extend from Lake Mead National Recreation Area, through the County’s Wetlands Park, continuing along developed components of the Wash’s flood control system to the monument, and then on to more primitive trails leading to and within Red Rock, the Spring Mountains, and the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal published a fairly comprehensive article about the area. You can read it here.
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What is Tule Springs Current Status?
Last November, with collaboration facilitated by the National Parks Conservation Association, the Clark County Commission, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas city councils and the Tribal Council of the Southern Nevada Paiute Tribe unanimously passed resolutions asking Nevada’s Congressional delegation to make Tule Springs a national monument, managed by the National Park Service. These elected officials represent more than a million southern Nevada residents.
A broad range of stakeholders and varied groups have worked together to outline boundaries and details, and all have come together in the spirit of collaboration to make Tule Springs a model urban national park.
With our partners, we’re appealing now to Nevada’s Congressional delegation to file legislation, anticipating that it will pass during this Congress. But we need your help urging our representatives to do so. The area and its ecosystem are facing threats posed by urban encroachment, ongoing or increased recreation demand and the illegal dumping of residential and industrial waste. Vandalism and looting of irreplaceable paleontological resources is happening regularly.
We urge you to connect with the Protectors of Tule Spring Wash for more information.
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Las Vegas bearpoppy (Arctomecon californica) Photo by Donnie Barnett
The Upper Las Vegas Wash supports four unique and imperiled plants. The Las Vegas buckwheat has been petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The Nevada Natural Heritage Program has also identified three additional plant species in the area, Merriam’s bearpoppy, the Las Vegas bearpoppy, and the halfring milkvetch, as imperiled. The area supports Joshua trees and several species of cacti.
It is also important habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, burrowing owls, kit foxes and several other wildlife species recognized for protection under the Clark County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan. Four species of raptors are found in the wash: kestrels, barn owls, burrowing owls, and great horned owls. The red-tailed blazing star bee, a little known or described species, is found in the Wash ecosystem and is considered imperiled due to its rarity.
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An Active Watershed:
The Las Vegas Wash is the only drainage system in the Las Vegas Hydrologic Basin. All waters in the Basin eventually flow to the Wash and then on into Lake Mead and the Colorado River. Ninety percent of Las Vegas Valley residents’ drinking water comes from Lake Mead, so the protection and preservation of the Upper Las Vegas Wash, as an active watershed, is critically important.
The Upper Las Vegas Wash carries water only intermittently, which is not unusual for a desert wash. As a body of water in a desert ecosystem, the biodiversity of the region is sustained and concentrated within the Wash. Keeping the Wash functioning as a healthy hydrological feature is critical to protect and preserve all the native plants and animals that it supports.
Preservation of the Upper Wash will also help satisfy water quality and water resource goals outlined through several commissioned studies and defined by Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Las Vegas Valley Watershed Advisory Committee, and the recently approved Clark County Las Vegas Valley Water Quality Management Plan.
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Archaeological Resources:
A four-month intensive study of the area in 1962, chronicled by National Geographic, catalogued thousands of Ice Age mammal fossils, including Columbian mammoth, ground sloth, American lion, Camelops, bison and ancient species of horse.
The significance of the area was re-confirmed in the past few years with the scientifically documented removal of thousands of fossils. The San Bernardino County Museum currently holds thousands of fossils from this site in its repository facility. Recent paleontology studies and inventory contracted by the Bureau of Land Management and a 2009 site-survey of the area commissioned by the National Park Service for the Department of Interior confirm the area’s significance and draw attention to the area’s increasing degradation.
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