News
2024 Spring Wheat Planting
In February of this year, in partnership with the Friends of Cibola NWR group, the Refuge planted 38 acres of spring wheat to increase dove hunting opportunities. 20 acres is within our Island Unit, and 18 acres is in Unit 2. The Unit 2 field had not been utilized in several seasons, and we have experienced challenges with irrigation and water flow on this field. Additionally, this is an area that is heavily utilized by burros due to several areas of fence that need to be repaired. Due to the challenges with water flow across the field, we have only seen approximately a third of the field germinate. While this portion was seeing good growth, it has come under heavy grazing pressure by burros. Due to the current state of the field, and new maintenance needs for the canal feeding this field in addition to the other forage fields in Unit 2, we will be focusing our attention to ensuring the Island Unit field successfully comes to seed for the Fall Dove season.
For questions, please contact the Southwest AZ Complex office at swaz@fws.gov or (928) 345-4916.
