Nature News
July 31, 2025
Nurturing Nature
By: Carol Suits
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Kid Stuff
Attention kids grades K – 12!
A Liberty Wildlife Announcement
Kid’s clubs are starting in October!
Superhero Club – Grades K – 3
Learn to be a Superhero by helping nature
Nature Explorer Club – Grades 4 – 6
Join the club workshops and explore nature’s wonders
Teen Club – Grades 7 – 12
Get wild with wildlife activities!
Clubs are accepting applications for the fall semester from August 15th to October 1st .
For further information and to apply to the Superhero and Nature Explorer Clubs, please contact Carol Suits, carols@libertywildlife.org. The Teen Club contact is Dora Suttell, dorasuttell@libertywildlife.org
Animal Cams
This is a great time of year to check out live animal cams! Animals born in the spring are growing and learning skills to help them survive as adults. Let’s look in on a few of them!
Puzzles!
Happy end of July! Enjoy a puzzle to wind down for the day!
Coatimundi
By: Claudia Kirscher
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
Count yourself fortunate if you have seen coatimundis during your hikes into the back country of Arizona. They are a member of the raccoon family and native to South and Central America as well as south-western North America. The white-nosed coati is found in Arizona, the southwest and Central America (while the brown-nosed coati is found only in South America). They are considered relative newcomers to Arizona, having first been reported in 1892, and have been gradually expanding their range northward.
In Arizona, coatis are found in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts including the Superstition, Huachuca, and Chiricahua Mountains. They prefer elevations of 4500 to 7500 feet, but will move to lower deserts in cold winter weather. They are more often found in pine-oak woodlands or sycamore canyons, usually near water. They sleep in trees. It has been observed that if they feel threatened, they will all climb a tree and drop feces down on the threat.
They are reddish brown to chocolate colored, a white snout, and sometimes white on the breast. Their snout is long, somewhat pig-like, and very flexible, rotating up to 60 degrees in any direction. It is used to push objects, root for food, and rub parts of their body. The tail can be as long as 2 feet and has light and dark bands that become more prominent with age. The tail is often held erect and is used for balance and for communication with the rest of the band, especially in tall vegetation.
Coatimundis are social creatures and travel in groups or bands of up to 30 or more individuals for protection from mountain lions and male coatimundis. A band consists of only females and young males up to 2 years old. The older males are driven from the group by the females and join the females just during breeding season.
The females leave the group each spring to give birth in a protected cavity such as a cave, rocky niche in a wooded canyon or hollow tree. They give birth to 4-6 young and when the young are 6-8 weeks of age they rejoin the band where they are fed, protected and educated by the entire band.
Coatis are diurnal opportunistic omnivores, spending most of the day foraging. They will eat insects, lizards, nuts (acorns and pinon), cactus fruit, manzanita berries, eggs, roots, snakes, small mammals, and carrion.
Predator threats to coatimundis include raptors, humans, and large carnivores. They are ferocious in their defense of young using sharp front claws and large canines.
If encountered in the wild, give them a wide berth, step back and enjoy observing these often reclusive mammals.
Resources: desertusa.com ; en.wikipedia.org ; arizonahighways.com
A Desert Conundrum
By: Gail Cochrane
Liberty Wildlife Volunteer
I often walk my pup Eli on a desert trail that edges a neighborhood. The preserve homes are a little distant from the walking path. The other day there was a sudden rush of sound and motion, right there between us and the homes. Dozens of birds flew up, wheeling into the dawn sky. As they sifted down to settle in a cluster of desert trees, I could see they were doves mostly, but quails and pigeons too. Then a man appeared, striding into the sheltering trees. He carried a tub in one hand and the plastic lid in the other.
Eli and I walked a bit along the trail to have a better view, and saw him extend a snake grabber and lift a hefty snake off the ground. All in one motion, he dropped it neatly into the tub and popped the lid on. Wasting no time, he lifted the tub and headed back to his house.
What?! What I just saw was weird and disturbing.
I know that man as a fellow dog walker, and a week or so later we passed each other on the street. I asked him about the big flush of birds. “Yes, that was me,” he said, and continued to tell this story.
“I’ve been worried about the seed eating birds. With no rain, there are no annual plants, and no seeds,” he explained. “I started putting out seeds for the quails. Soon mourning doves joined in large numbers, and after that came the pigeons.”
I told him that we knew from experience that bird seed can attract snakes, because they are hunting the rodents that come out after dark for the leftover seeds.
He said he moved the seed distribution out into the desert, away from his home. He also put a tub out with water for the birds, outside his fenced yard. He said his night camera recorded visitors such as bobcats, skunks, javelina (who crawled right into the tub), and coyotes. He said one night a snake curled at the edge of the water tub.
“So far this summer I have picked up four snakes,” he said. He’s taken snakes to the edge of the community, to release into open desert. But construction is getting under way out there, so now he hikes into the Mountain Preserve for a snake release.
“I’d like to end it,” he confessed. “There are just too many birds, and I worry about my dog with snakes around.” He sighed. “But I look out the window and all the birds are out there, waiting for food.”
This well-intentioned soul confessed he’s even carried bird seed on his desert walks to scatter under shrubs.
This encounter makes me ponder the human – nature relationship. Some people are cruel and disregarding of animals, and others care to the extreme. Was this man wrong to feed the birds? Was there an amount of seed that would have kept the group smaller? Liberty Wildlife teaches that less intervention is best. Gambel Quails regulate their breeding according to the amount of annual plant matter to be found any given year. Nature accounts for drought and hardship. Yet for all we have done to harm the environment, offering help to animals in times of scarcity seems the least we can do. What do you think?
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