Carl E. Bock and Jane H. Bock. 2000
In 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado introduced the first domestic livestock to the American Southwest. Over the subsequent four centuries, cattle, horses, and sheep have created a massive ecological experiment on these arid grasslands. The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch in the high desert of southeastern Arizona is an 8,000-acre sanctuary of the National Audubon Society where grazing has been excluded since 1968. This book summarizes the results of field studies conducted on and adjacent to this unique site, whose goal has been to understand the biodiversity and ecological dynamics of southwestern grasslands with versus without the controlling influence of domestic grazers.
Reviews
“This book brings together nearly every aspect of grassland research in the American Southwest and is written to appeal to both academics and the general public. It refutes conventional myths about some causes of grassland change, tests hypotheses in restoration ecology, and offers new perspectives on the recovery of ecosystems free from livestock grazing. It is a book every naturalist or ecologist should read.”
Conrad Bahre, author of A Legacy of Change: Historic Human Impact on Vegetation in the Arizona Borderlands.
“Jane and Carl Bock write precisely as well as lovingly of the dynamics of the distinctive grasslands near the U.S./Mexico border in Arizona. They also bring decades of first-rate science to bear on their topic.”
Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Ethnobiology for the Future, and Where Our Food Comes From.
“I expected another nature book. What I found was a love story. Carl and Jane Bock visited the Research Ranch in the early 1970s and fell in love – with the Sonoita Plain, the plants and the animals there, and the people who call it home. Like all good love stories, this one is full of passion and joy, excitement and disappointment, and sadness and humor. With their successful blend of storytelling and scientific reporting, the Bocks make a reader curious to learn more about this little-known land.”
H. Ronald Pulliam, Past-President, The Ecological Society of America.
The View from Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland
ISBN: 0-520-22184-2
University of California Press, Berkeley, Californ
Available in paperback from Amazon