Buffelgrass beware! Volunteers across southern Arizona are gathering together to pull buffelgrass throughout the month of February. Over at Catalina State Park, Patty Estes leads the volunteers for the Catalina State Park Buffelgrass Slayers.
“We generally have digs every first Saturday of the month,” she said.
She and the volunteers have worked for years to remove buffelgrass in the park.
“We’re working now about a mile from the trail heads, so we have removed buffelgrass mostly by manually digging it out,” she said.
At the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, Kim Franklin said the buffelgrass is an invasive species that takes up the water, time and space from our native plants.
“Those grasses are filling up the space between the plants and turning the desert into a grassland,” Franklin said.
The organizations will continue to do more removal events throughout the month, which can be found on the museum’s website.