Exploring Arizona's Kaibab Plateau: Wildlife, Scenery, and Conservation

[Music] situated between the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the Utah border in an

area hunters NOAA's unit 12a is an Arizona paradise known as the Kaibab plateau that means Mountain lying down

in Paiute or at least that's what I've been told it is a pretty special place world

famous for mule deer but I think that topography the scenery the whole suite of wildlife that is this year all

contribute to what makes this place what a friend of mine calls the jewel of Arizona there's no doubt this is one of

the most special places in the state of Arizona at least as far as I'm concerned Tod buck is an Arizona Game and Fish

Department wildlife manager he's been patrolling the Kaibab for 25 years moved up here right after training was

fortunate enough to draw this district right out of the Academy I've had some opportunities over the

years to move up and move on and and chose not to because this place is just so amazing

we're sitting obviously on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon looking down a canyon that you can actually hike down

it's a really neat spot it's on the east side of the plateau just within the forest boundary and we're actually

sitting about right on the Grand Canyon National Park boundary where we're at just one of the many amazing vistas that

the plateau offers no lack of scenery topographically the plateau Kaibab plateau goes from the

bottom of the Grand Canyon all the way up to about ninety two hundred feet so that offers a lot of different habitat

types a lot of different vegetative types really a diverse place we've managed a wildlife area here since the

50s a bison herd in particular at the House Rock Wildlife Area but it's also home to wintering mule deer herd from

the North Kaibab desert bighorn sheep populations coming out of the Grand Canyon antelope populations living in

the flats below the plateau so just a whole suite of different species that find house Rock Wildlife Area home the

world-famous Condor may be one of the rarest birds in the entire world makes the plateau home right now there are a

lot of condors feeding on the plateau we've got a species of squirrel that is unique to the plateau doesn't exist

anywhere else Kaibab squirrels one of the very special animals that are on the plateau and it's worth the trip of the

plateau just to see those as far as I'm concerned the Kaibab has a long storied history when it comes to mule deer in

particular going clear back to before Teddy Roosevelt but obviously Teddy Roosevelt is famous for putting the

Kaibab on the map visited here several times hundred mountain lions here hunted mule deer here declared in a national

game preserve the status that still exists to this day and so about the time of Teddy Roosevelt's tenure the Kaibab

became notorious for big meal deer bucks and has been ever since that's what really draws most of the attention

the east side offers some unique challenges it's in the rain shadow of the plateau so it gets significantly

less precipitation in a lot of other places this morning I was hauling water to catchments because we're having a

really dry fall and the wildlife need to have water over the last 15 years we've put 19 new water sources on the plateau

the plateau is an interesting place from a water perspective in that its limestone topography and it obviously

sits right next to the Grand Canyon so it's incredibly well-drained there's essentially no natural water on the

plateau all of the wildlife that exists on the plateau is essentially dependent on man-made water sources be those stock

tanks or wildlife specific catchments that the agency has put in and so we've got somewhere in the vicinity of 170

wildlife catchments on the plateau that support the wildlife populations that exist here wildlife management in

Arizona is praying for rain it's all about water every district in the state is dependent on to some extent man-made

water sources and without those our wildlife populations would be a fraction of what they are in the state certainly

this place if you if your eyes are open you're gonna enjoy it that's all there is to it because everywhere you look

there's something spectacular to see [Applause] [Music]

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