Agua Fria National Monument is in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, approximately north of downtown

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

. Created by Presidential proclamation on January 11, 2000, the monument is managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

, an agency within the

U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

. The Bureau of Land Management already managed the lands; however, under monument status the level of protection and preservation of resources within the new monument have been enhanced. The monument is a unit of the BLM's

National Landscape Conservation System National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West.Native American structures have been recorded in the monument, some of large

pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

s containing more than 100 rooms each. The enhanced protection status also provides greater habitat protection for the numerous plant and animal communities.

Antiquities

Peoria-Lake Pleasant Regional Park-Indian Mesa Ruins 1

Petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s are scattered across the numerous puebloan ruins, which were built between 1250 and 1450 C.E. when several thousand Native Americans, known as the Perry Mesa Tradition, inhabited the region. The petroglyphs depict animals, geometric figures and abstract symbols and are found by the thousands. Numerous ruins of agricultural terraces and irrigation devices indicate that

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

was widespread during this period. Other historical entities that are found include 19th century mining features and

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

sheep camps.

Natural history

Situated between and in elevation, the monument is primarily composed of semi-desert grassland but also contains extensive riparian stands of cottonwoods and willows which are tied to the Agua Fria River. More than 140 bird species have been recorded at the monument. Notable species of

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

s and

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s, including the

leopard frog Leopard frog is a generic name used to refer to various species in the true frog genus Lithobates. They all have similar coloration: brown or green with spots that form a leopard pattern. They are distinguished by their distribution and behavior ...

, the

garter snake Garter snake is a common name for generally harmless, small to medium-sized snakes belonging to the genus ''Thamnophis'' in the family Colubridae. Native to North and Central America, species in the genus ''Thamnophis'' can be found from the sub ...

, and the

desert tortoise The desert tortoise (''Gopherus agassizii''), is a species of tortoise in the Family (biology), family Testudinidae. The species is native to the Mojave Desert, Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexic ...

, can be seen at the monument.

Mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s such as the

pronghorn The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

white-tail deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

and

javelina A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North ...

are relatively common. The

elk The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

s and

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. I ...

s are also found in the monument, but are much less common. Native fish including the longfin dace, the Gila mountain sucker, speckled dace, and three endangered native fish including the

Gila intermedia The Gila chub (''Gila intermedia'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in Mexico and the United States. The Gila chub is closely related to the roundtail chub.Rinne, J.N. 1969. ''Cyprinid fishes of the genus Gi ...

charalito The Gila topminnow or charalito (''Poeciliopsis occidentalis'') is a species of fish in the family Poeciliidae. It is found in Mexico and the United States. Description The Gila topminnow has an elongated curved body. Males are rarely over and ...

, and

desert pupfish The desert pupfish (''Cyprinodon macularius'') is a rare species of bony fish in the family Cyprinodontidae. It is a small fish, typically less than 7.62 cm (3 in) in length. Males are generally larger than females, and have bright-blue ...

exist in the -long

Agua Fria River The Agua Fria River (Spanish for "cold water") is a long intermittent stream which flows generally south from east-northeast of Prescott in the U.S. state of Arizona. Prescott draws much of its municipal water supply from the upper Agua Fria w ...

and its tributaries. In late 2004, the BLM and the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

helped spark the formation of the Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument, a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

created to assist the federal agency in monument protection, management, and outreach.

References

External links

*
BLM.gov: official ''Agua Fria National Monument'' website
{{authority control National Monuments in Arizona Bureau of Land Management National Monuments Bureau of Land Management areas in Arizona Protected areas of Yavapai County, Arizona 2000 establishments in Arizona Protected areas established in 2000 Units of the National Landscape Conservation System