Desert discovery
Learn how to wrangle a lizard in one weekend
Even if lassoing a lizard has never crossed your mind, the procedure (involving a fishing rod and dental floss) is a hoot. It’s just one of a bewildering array of natural-history activities you can learn about at the Tucson Audubon Society’s annual Institute of Desert Ecology, held at Catalina State Park.
The idea behind the program is simple: Give people a chance to learn about the environment so they’ll want to conserve it.
With an intensive four-day weekend of talks and demonstrations from top experts in Sonoran Desert ecology, you can catch sight of Harris’s hawks, get a close look at scorpions and Gila monsters, or hear how the Sonoran Desert has evolved in the last 10,000 years.
