Talk:Sonoran Desert/Archive 1

comment
I think this should be at Sonoran Desert, not desert. Rmhermen 05:02, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

Is there some handy, who can make a map? 68.6.85.167 03:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll try Jake34567 16:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

3D photo
I'm not really sure that's the best picture to use here. If it was made from two photos, using one of the originals might be better.

Honestly, how many people are viewing Wikipedia wearing 3D glasses? Who even has 3D glasses handy when they're just browsing the web? Even if they do, who actually cares enough to bother? (I don't, and I DO have 3D glasses).

This photo might be more appropriate in an article on 3D imagery. Andy Christ (talk) 07:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Native wildlife
The Mojave desert has a section for animals and plants indigenous to the desert. Should the Sonoran desert also have a list like it? Gforce20 (talk) 21:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That'd be great. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 21:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Highest Point
The lowest point of the Sonoran Desert is at the coast from the Gulf of California. But which is the highest point of the desert? --79.218.86.158 (talk) 11:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably not really an answerable question. Top of the Sonoran Uplands is +/- 3,500 ft (in Arizona), but it just grades up into the next-higher zone -- oak woodlands and/or pinon-juniper. HTH, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

But inside the sonoran desert are a lot of mountains reaching much more than 2.000 m (6.560 ft). So what's fact. --79.218.90.169 (talk) 09:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah. IMS, the highest peak within the Sonoran Desert is Mt. Graham, above Safford, Arizona, at 10,720 feet (3,267 m). Summit area is spruce-fir forest. Very popular this weekend -- and all summer. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 15:45, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this really necessary?
I edited the part of the article about the population of the Sonoran Desert by removing that the cities of Tucson and Phoenix are in the United States. Then my changes got deleted and they told me it was Americocentric to assume that everybody knows which country those cities are in. But this is an article about a place within America. Is it really necessary to say that those cities (especially Phoenix, which is one of the largest cities in America, and I'm sure pretty well-known outside America) are in America? Can't we just say that they're in Arizona, which would clear up that they're not in Mexico? Toolenduso (talk) 10:18, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Redundant bits removed. Vsmith (talk) 15:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

A popular culture part addition
It can be possible to add a popular culture citation, there plenty of films that occur here also the Robert Bolaño's novels happen here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.233.210.233 (talk) 04:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Claim that the Sonoran Desert extends into Canada
I"m frustrated by a very repetitive and circular argument on Talk:Okanagan Valley (wine region), ad nauseam, from an editor from WP:Wine who claims that "reliable sources" support the claim that the Osoyoos in the South Okanagan region of British Columbia is "the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert", citing endless travel and wine articles and a few badly-researched papers to support this claim, which has been advanced by a certain winery and also by that town's tourism board and associated wine region organization and repeated endlessly. No authoritative sources support this claim, which infers and sometimes explicitly says the the Sonoran Desert includes all deserts between Sonora and Canada, including the Great Basin Desert and more...this is so clearly counterfactual it's absurd; the argument is made that because those authoritative sources (Britannica, Merriam-Webster, the EPA, the BC Ministry of Forests etc) do not explicitly state that Osoyoos is not part of the Sonoran Desert, then that validates Osoyoos' claim and the host of non-authoritative cites this editor is claiming are "reliable sources". I've invited them to come to this talkpage and ask, as I am now doing, and to all the state-geography and desert and ecoregion talkpages for all the areas which this claim asserts, indirectly, sometimes directly, are part of the Sonoran Desert. She/he has also asserted that this page and all others, including the EPA ecoregion page, should be amended to include the "fact" that Osoyoos is part of the Sonoran Desert. I've explained that countefactual, non-authoritative sources are NOT reliable sources, and are certainly not verifiable sources either. But that is ignored, now I'm being demanded to fill in a table, item by item, "proving" that they're not reliable sources and why, but she/he refuses to concede that any of the authoritative sources say what they do.... IMO the reason for this campaign - very vociferous campaign - is that the wine region, town tourism board and the winery in question (Nk'mip Cellars) will have to redo and reprint all their materials, which would be very expensive indeed. The claim that the South Okanagan (around Osoyoos only, and no farther north even though the climate and fauna/flora are not appreciably different for up to another 400 miles north) is desert at all is ALSO not supported by any REAL reliable source....it's shrub steppe, and in the classification of Biogeoclimatic zones of British Columbia, published by the Ministry of Forests, it is in the Bunchgrass Zone (and bunchgrass doesn't grow in deserts, does it?). Osoyoos actually planted some Saguaro at its "desert centres" (there are two, each claiming the title of "Canada's only desert", on opposite sides of town, one native run, the other non-native run (Nk'mip Cellars is a business venture of teh Osoyoos Indian Band)....I won't go on, there's tons on that talkpage back-and-forth and endless wilfull blindness mixed with demands t hat I recognize "reliable sources" which just, well, AREN'T reliable, simply by dint of being counter-factual, even when they're not travel and wine articles (which the bulk of them are). If anyone here would care to weigh in and dispute me (she/he says I'm being OR, that it's "because Skookum1 sez so" which is my only argument) go right ahead, but I doubt anyone from "here" will....I'm on the edge of filing an ANI about the absurd, persistent, time-wasting argument and endless refusal to consider teh validity of authoritative sources, or to consult geography and other pages that would be affected if this claim were to be placed on them (whjich he/she has said she/he feels is necessary). I've written the wine region, and the Royal British Columbia Museum, which hosts a few papers by biologists of some kind who's adopted the terminology advanced by the winery and tourism board; I may or may not get a reply from either, we'll see as the weekdays begin (I'd made those inquiries late Friday). In my view ALL citations she/he has produced are derived from the town's/winery's presskit and have no scientific basis or relation to the academic mainstream; they are effectively the same kind of thign as "wiki-clones", all rooted in the same INCORRECT copy. I'm done with arguing with this person, it's pointless and fruitless, but to prevent this person having their way with rewriting North American, and US, geography to conform to this one little town's claims to having similarities to northern Mexico.........others have to weigh in. We're not supposed to WP:Poll but I have no other choice at this point.....this is an instance of a p.r. campaign trying to hijack Wikipedia to advance its claims...and for that I've been accused of a "conspiracy theory". So tell me - is the Mojave part of the Sonoran Desert? Is the Black Rock? The Owyhee? The Channeled Scablands? Death Valley? The Columbia Basin? I know the answer, but I need others to say it, too, please.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * PS to all this, anyone know more about C. Hart Merriam and his Sonoran "life zone", as mentioned here? Pfly (talk) 07:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, worth pointing out that that site is t hat of teh Osoyoos Desert Society and that much discussion on that page attempts to come up with a "lucky for us" rambling dissertation on why it's really desert, if human activity hadn't introduced grasslands.....and this passage is very telling:
 * ''Farther south above all the hot deserts including the Sonoran it is a common inhabitant of the pinon-juniper zone and even the pine-oak zone, growing occasionally to 3,000 metres. But living high above the Sonoran desert does not make it a Sonoran plant species, nor make the Okanagan “Sonoran.”
 * Interesting how Agne just doesn't want to acknowledge that even an Osoyoos site says that the presence of certain plants does not "make the Okanagan 'Sonoran'"....and the resources links provided won't say it either....Skookum1 (talk) 08:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason this is on this article's talk page, such as can you give me a problematic link that's in the article? --Kleopatra (talk) 15:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Link doesn't work
Link Reference 6 (Jaguars) goes to University of Arizona 404. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.118.232.108 (talk) 16:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)