forty-five days before the end of the nine-month drought.

The West Desert is dry, usually getting only 6-10 inches of moisture in an average year. However, the precipitation that does fall usually comes during the winter and spring. This accounts for the presence of sagebrush and also means that the rain and snow has a chance to exert some beneficial effect on the vegetation shortly before fawning

season.

From these observations, we decided that while the West Desert's vegetation was far from ideal for antelope, it did compare favorably with other areas having a greater density of population.

But what about temperature? Was the West Desert either too hot or too cold for antelope to endure. It was not nearly as cold as the windswept high plains of Wyoming or Montana. It was no hotter than southeastern New Mexico and not as dry as the Big Bend country of Texas-all places that supported larger numbers of pronghorns.

Was the critical factor water? For many years, game managers had doubted that antelope actually required drinking water. In his early book "Game Management," Aldo Leopold says, "I conclude that antelope are like mule deer; they

drink regularly when they can, especially does at fawning time, but they subsist and reproduce on succulence alone where circumstances require."

My personal experience seemed to bear this out. In the summer of 1947 I studied antelope in the Texas panhandle and hadn't seen them drink even though I had observed them in the vicinity of wells. However, as I now recall, that had been a relatively wet summer with an unusual good supply of succulent forbs throughout the range.

Furthermore, I believed that since there was enough water on the Utah range for domestic livestock, there should certainly be enough to support the antelope population.

But further study of the literature raised doubts. In 1975 Donald M. Beale and Ralph C. Holmgren, biologists with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resource had conducted experiments on the Forest Service's Desert Experimental Range near Milford, Utah. In this experiment, antelope were confined to different experimental pastures-some with and some without water. After 17 days those animals in pastures without water appeared to be dehydrated and very weak. All personnel connected with the experiment

were satisfied that these animals would not survive much longer so their troughs were filled with water. These animals recovered after having water available for several days.

Water was again withheld from two pastures. At this time there was a good stand of Russian thistle in one pasture, but even with the succulent food, the animals could not get enough moisture, and it was necessary to refill the water troughs after a period of several weeks.

The assumption that there would be enough water for antelope on a range having enough water for livestock proved to be another illustration of the danger of not questioning the "obvious" and in trusting simple answers when dealing with nature.

While developing plans for its Salt Lake District, the Bureau and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources had decided to stock antelope in Puddle Valley. This area consists of some 250,000 acres of West Desert lying about sixty miles west of Salt Lake City. Most of the area is administered by BLM. Utah's Wildlife Department released seventy pronghorns there in December of 1975, and, in anticipation of funding through the Sikes Act, I was assigned to work with state biolo

gists to develop a plan for the management of the habitat. In the process we discovered some surprising facts about the area's water supply.

Large tracts of this land were without any permanent source of water such as springs, streams or lakes. The evaporation rate is highfrom 55 to 60 inches a year. Impoundments to provide water for livestock have been developed over the past 100 years, but these are shallow reservoirs with large surface areas and are susceptible to rapid evaporation. During a typical dry summer and more particularly in years that are abnormally dry, these reservoirs dry up. Livestock grazing in the area is usually confined to winter months, and they depend primarily on water pumped from wells by the livestock operators during this time. As a result there are hundreds of thousands of acres of desert land without a drop of water during the summer when the antelope need it most.

The joint BLM-Utah Division of Wildlife Resources plan for Puddle Valley seeks to develop water for wildlife that will be available during summer months at 27 locations. In 12 areas water would be pumped from wells and stored in large tanks. It would be made available to the antelope in small watering troughs. Eight of the shallow reservoirs would be converted to deep pittype reservoirs called "charcos."

These provide a large storage capacity with a relatively small surface area and greatly reduced evaporation rate. We would also like to build seven guzzlers. A guzzler is a paved watershed that collects water for storage in a tank. The water is made available for animals in troughs fitted with float valves.

The primary reason for building these watering facilities is to benefit antelope, but available water will also benefit other forms of wildlife.

Rudy Drobnick is a veteran biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources whose hobby is making movies of wildlife at remote desert waterholes. He sets up a camera that is activated by a photo-electronic sensor that reacts to movement. He aims the camera at the area just above the water and leaves it for several weeks. When he comes back, he has a photographic record of the birds and mammals that came to drink. A clock and other automatic devices record the hour and date of each visit.

Rudy now has a collection of film showing eagles, antelope, deer, coyotes, ground squirrels, chukar partridges, pinyon jays and many other creatures that use desert water holes.

He says that we have taken water for granted as it affects wildlife. "We are just beginning to gain an understanding of how important water is, particularly in these desert areas.

Much of this country has all the habitat requirements for many species except one-water. Provide dependable water year around and I think we'll see animals using many areas that they have not been able to use during the dry summer months, and we'll insure survival of populations during droughts."

Game biologists are not the only people interested in the Puddle Valley project. Jay Bertagnole, Ken Byram, Darrell Byram and Hatch Howard are local livestock operators who graze their livestock in the area. They have voluntarily pumped storage tanks at five wells full before they left the range at the end of the 1976 spring grazing season, so that the antelope would have water for part of the summer.

Rex Willden, a sportsman who lives in Salt Lake City, has also encouraged the development of water for wildlife on the West Desert. Recently he donated $200 to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to help a local rancher install a new pump on one Puddle Valley well. The rancher will use the pump to supply water for his cattle during the grazing season, but will continue to operate the well during the summer to provide water for wildlife.

Offroad vehicle users have also cooperated. At the time the antelope were released, it was decided that offroad vehicle use should be restricted in the area until the antelope became established. This proposal was discussed in several public meetings with offroad vehicle users and others. Most of the users agreed to go along with the restrictions. Division of Wildlife Resource officers responsible for the area say that violations have been minimal.

Even a missles manufacturer, the Hercules Corporation of Magna, Utah, has offered help by donating surplus rocket bodies to be used as water storage tanks and equipping them with the necessary plumbing. These storage tanks have about a 3,000 gallon capacity.

Continued public interest combined with appropriate support from the responsible state and Federal agencies is providing a brighter future for all wildlife on Utah's West Desert.

Bighorn

The Arizona night was brittle

as the wintry northwind laced the hillside. A group of shivering but dedicated people, who had driven into the night to keep this backcountry rendezvous, waited impatiently to make camp. Their caravan of pickup trucks and 4wheel drives had been drawn close to protect them from the elements in much the same fashion of pioneers drawing their wagons into a circle to protect against a charge of hostile Indians. At the appointed hour of 10:30 light beams were seen bouncing across what looked like a luna landscape. The late-starters were pulling in after a 240 mile trek from Phoenix.

During the next two days and nights more than a score of volunteers worked with biologists from the Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona Game and Fish Department to develop an isolated natural basin into a permanent water tank for Desert Bighorn Sheep.

Most of the work was done by the volunteers-members of the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society. This organization is dedicated to the restoration, manage

ment, conservation and propagation of the desert bighorn. The Society is the backbone of such construction efforts. Its active members participate in several habitat-improvements each year. They work under the guidance and direction of professional wildlife managers from the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the BLM. BLM is evolved because 80 percent of the desert bighorn's habitat in Arizona is on BLM land. In the last year alone wildlife biologists from the Phoenix and Yuma District Offices have taken part in six habitat-improvement projects. The Arizona Game and Fish Department is, of course, glad to encourage any development of wildlife habitat.

Working together, these three groups hope to encourage the comeback of one of America's magnificent game animals. Although there are an estimated 2500 sheep left in Arizona, much of their former range has been

reduced in recent years by encroaching civilization. Man and his machines have left few corners of the wilderness untouched and isolated. Sheep are sensitive and

easily disturbed. The encroachments of men have caused them to retreat to some of the most rugged and out-lying areas of Arizona's desert mountains. But even here, the lack of water may be a limiting factor that prevents them from using large areas of otherwise suitable habitat.

While developing plans for improving wildlife habitat, BLM had identified water development as one way of improving conditions for Desert Bighorn. After that, BLM and State wildlife biologists started to look for suitable sites while they were in the field.

Once a promising area is found, the biologist make an informal evaluation of its potential. This is followed by a more formal environmental assessment of the expected impact development would have on the surrounding area. If everything looks favorable after this, BLM and the Arizona Game and Fish Department work out a cooperative agreement spelling out the details of the construction and maintenance of the project. Once all details are agreed upon, a construction date can be scheduled with the Bighorn Sheep Society.

Water development in the bighorn ranges include tank cleaning, dam construction, silt retention and diversion structures and the sealing off of fractured natural waterholes.

A rock hole filled during the wet season may hold water for several months, but since most such holes are shallow, most of the water that might be caught ends up as runoff, or else gradually seeps through the porous surfaces of the rock. Although studies on the relationship between bighorn and water remain inconclusive, it seems likely that the temporary nature of such waterholes keeps the animals from using much of their potential range for much of the year.

The late-night rendezvous in north-west Arizona, described at the beginning, had to do with a rock basin in the Black Mountains called the Van Deeman Tank. A routine ground survey had found the sight and BLM biologists had recognized its potential. Here a steep-walled wash worked its way down the side of a mountain creating a series of shallow basins. At the point where the large basin dropped away to the one below, a twelve-foot gap between shale walls formed a natural site for a small retention dam. BLM biologists believed that such a structure would provide a permanent supply of water, that this would enable the bighorns to establish themselves permanently in what had heretofore been only a seasonal range.

A steel-reinforced masonry dam spanning the gap between the basin walls would provide the storage capacity to hold a permanent water supply. But building such a dam sounds simpler than the reality. All tools and materials had to be packed into the site. In this case it was only a few hundred feet. On other projects it had been more than a mile. Even so, ninety pound bags of cement, cut in half and placed in plastic for easier handling, became quite a load when carried sack by sack up a rocky hillside.

That was only the first step. In order to tie the dam into the rock face, holes one inch in diameter and six inches deep had to be drilled with a gasoline powered rock drill and breaker. Horizontal and verti

cal reinforcing bars were then imbedded in the rock to form a mesh frame. Boulders were brought from the nearby hillside and mortar was mixed in buckets. The boulders were set and cemented into place with the mortar until the dam stood 6 feet high. When finished it was a work of art, stretching nearly 12 feet across and tapering from 3 feet thick at the base to 18 inches at the top. It had been plastered and painted a natural camouflaging tone so that it stood unobtrusive and nearly invisible between the walls of rock outcrop. The basin itself had been sealed with a coat of cement plaster to further insure that it would hold water.

But the dam was only a part of the project. Above the pool on one side, where the wash broke over the rock-lip, a gabion structure had to be built. This was a rock-filled wire basket constructed to provide a structure to divert silt away from the reservior. Again holes were drilled into the rock. Six-foot steel fence posts were mortared into place two feet apart in a parallel line. Wire screen was stretched and tied onto the posts for the length of the mesh basket thus formed. Four tons of loose rock and boulders filled the basket.

The weary volunteers finished on schedule late Sunday afternoon. Now they only had to drive the 200 miles back to home and more conventional labors.

The new reservoir, well-hidden from the human eye, will be a welcome improvement for local residents. Birds and small animals can easily get to the water. Difficultly access for larger animals will keep burros and cattle from using the water, but the incredibly surefooted bighorns will have no problem skipping down the rock-face to slake their thirst.

The dam which adds a new source of water and opens up new range, was built for less than $300 worth of materials, but required more than 500 man-hours of intensive labor, inestimable numbers of blisters and sore muscles. It was this labor that would have made the dam expensive had it been built by conventional methods. Such projects would be slow in coming were it not for the volunteer work of the Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society members and the cooperative efforts of the Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona Game and Fish Department. In the interest of everyone, there will be many more desert rendezvous.

The American victory of

Fallen Timbers did not end all Indian attacks against the western settlements, but it effectively broke the back of Indian resistance to westward expansion. It also averted, for a time, thoughts of secession among those who lived on the frontier. In that respect, victory

came none too soon.

At the end of the Revolution, England had ceded Florida and a strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico to Spain. That gave Spain control of the Gulf coast and a virtual strangle hold over the economic well-being of the settler. Mountains, a vast expanse of forest, and poor or nonexistent roads made it impossible for the settler to haul his crops to an eastern market. Conversely, the Mississippi River and its tributaries offered an easy outlet to the Gulf of Mexico, but control of the port of New Orleans gave Spain the power to grant or

deny the settler's use of this outlet. Through the years, Spain used that power capriciously. The poor settler was at her mercy.

From the moment he crossed the mountains, the settler lived under the specter of violent death. That threat he recognized and accepted. What he could not accept was the economic strangulation imposed by Spain and what he saw as his government's indifference to his plight. Under the circumstances, many westerners toyed with the idea of taking the western territories out of the union with the eastern states and joining themselves to Spain.

Spain continued to entertain hopes of establishing an empire east of the Mississippi River. Her control of Florida and the Louisiana was not disputed, but those lands east of the Mississippi River and north of the 31st parallel had always been considered an extension of first the colony and then the state of