The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: History and Highlights

Perched on the side of saguaro-studded hills and overlooking miles of mountains and valleys amidst the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O'odham and the multi-millennial presence of the Pasqua Yaqui, there’s no place quite like the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum anywhere in the world. Home to over 230 animal species and 1,200 varieties of plants, a range of botanical gardens, four aviaries, an aquarium, and an art gallery, the Museum offers a wide range of fun and fascinating encounters with the wildlife, vegetation, natural history, cultures, art and beauty of the Sonoran Desert. Not surprisingly, the Desert Museum ranks among the top museums in the U.S.

Exhibits and Education:

Two miles of accessible paved pathways traverse our 98-acre campus, encouraging nearly 400,000 guests a year to customize and pace their visits. As they explore, fascinating discoveries await their exploration and curiosity—animal enclosures embedded in the landscape; specialized gardens; cave and mineral displays; river and marine life (yes, there are fish in the desert!); and panoramic vistas. Along the way, our knowledgeable docents answer your questions about specific species through interpretive demonstrations, and our animal keepers spotlight various animals in daily presentations at the Warden Oasis Theater. For guests of all ages, the Museum offers interactive experiences, such as digging for fossils (Ancient Arizona); encounters with cownose stingrays (Stingray Touch); indoor — and air-conditioned! — climbing and exploration (Packrat Playhouse); and streamside play while learning about conservation (Spadefoot Splash). An exciting seasonal highlight, Raptor Free Flight, allows guests to observe birds of prey in their desert habitat as they fly overhead, completely untethered.

Saving Species and Habitats:

With our partners throughout Southern Arizona and Sonora, our scientists, curators, educators, and animal care staff have worked to restore habitats and safeguard biodiversity throughout the Museum’s history. To that end, the Museum participates in conservation and community engagement initiatives across the region, including survival plans for endangered species, such as the Mexican gray wolf, ocelot, black-tailed prairie dog, and San Esteban chuckwalla. Over the decades, our research has delved into such wide-ranging subjects as pollinators and desert food plants, invasive species management, and marine biodiversity in the Gulf of California. These conservation initiatives come to life for Museum guests and at community events through illuminating education programs and live animal presentations. All the Museum’s programs and projects share a central purpose: to protect the Sonoran Desert and its ecosystems — its lands, waters, plants, and animals (including people!) — for generations to come.

Museum Milestones

1952:

With financial backing from conservationist Arthur Newton Pack, William H. Carr founds the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum to interpret the natural history of the Sonoran Desert through integrated exhibits of native plants and animals. Several buildings erected on the site in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps are adapted for Museum use as exhibition spaces, offices, and a gift shop.

1953:

The locally produced television series, Desert Trails, featuring live animals and natural history discussions, brings desert stories to the wider public.

1963:

The Museum is the site of the first litter of Mexican gray wolf pups born in human care.

1964:

The Museum helps establish protections for nesting birds on Isla Rasa, Gulf of California.

1971:

The Beaver-Otter-Sheep exhibit opens.

1972:

The Docent Program launches with a small group of volunteers who guide school groups on tours. Over the years, it has expanded to serve all Museum guests with personalized tours and interpretive stations.

1973:

The Cat Canyon exhibit opens to showcase small cats and other small mammals.

1973:

The Cave and Earth Sciences exhibits open, presenting cave habitats and the region’s rich mineral heritage.

1981:

The Museum initiates the Tortoise Adoption Program (TAP) to support the welfare of captive and wild desert tortoises in the Tucson area through private custodianship.

1986:

Consisting of several large mammal habitats and three bird enclosures, the Mountain Woodland exhibit opens on the eastern edge of the Museum grounds.

1988:

The Hummingbird Aviary opens, providing the first-ever dedicated exhibition space for the study of temperate hummingbird behavior (e.g., breeding, territoriality, and vocalizations).

1989:

The Life Underground exhibit (a renovation of the former “Tunnel” exhibit) opens and features species that spend all or much of their lives below ground or in pitch-dark habitats.

1990s:

Organized by the Museum’s science department to educate policymakers and the public, the Migratory Pollinators Program (initially called the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign) is created to study the decline in native pollinators and its impact on local ecosystems.

1991:

Initially a local program before expanding to national audiences, The Desert Speaks airs on PBS across 200 markets for 19 seasons.

1992:

The Museum opens the Desert Grasslands exhibit on the west side of the grounds.

1994:

The Museum excavates the Sonorasaurus, a new dinosaur species, eventually named Arizona’s state dinosaur.

1994:

Built to accommodate a range of uses, such as meetings, exhibitions, and events, the Ironwood Gallery displays rotating Art Institute exhibits.

1994:

The Ironwood Terraces Restaurant and Ocotillo Café expand on-site food options for Museum guests.

1995:

The Museum establishes its publishing division, ASDM Press (now called the Desert Museum Press), extending its educational outreach through over 40 books and guides about the Sonoran Desert’s natural and cultural history.

1996:

One of the Museum’s most popular programs, Raptor Free Flight, launches.

1999:

The Museum plants the Pollination Gardens, attracting butterflies, moths, bees, hummingbirds, and bats, and broadens the scope of this exhibit in 2008 by planting Kino Heritage Fruit Trees (figs, pomegranates, quinces, peaches, and citrus) and a Three Sisters Garden (corn, pole beans, and squash) at another location on grounds.

2000:

Through providing biological research, the Museum supports the formation of Ironwood Forest National Monument.

2000:

Ancient Arizona opens, offering guests the chance to dig for fossils.

2001:

The Museum participates in creating Pima County’s award-winning Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, designed to maintain a balance between protecting our natural and cultural heritage and encouraging growth and economic development.

2001:

The Art Institute, designed to enhance conservation awareness through art education and exhibits, opens.

2003:

The Museum provides pivotal research for the founding of the Monte Mojino Reserve in Mexico near Alamos, Sonora.

2007:

The Museum opens the Baldwin Education Building (housing the Baldwin Gallery, Art Institute offices and classrooms, and event space) and the Warden Oasis Theater, expanding both exhibit and educational infrastructure.

2007:

The Life on the Rocks exhibit debuts.

2008:

The Forever Young Treehouse, Arizona’s first fully accessible treehouse discovery center, opens, eventually replaced by a modified design of salvaged and sustainable materials and renamed the Coati Clubhouse.

2010:

Developed in consultation with the Tohono O’odham Nation and blessed by tribal elders, the Labyrinth Garden, a maze of plants and rocks, opens.

2013:

The Warden Aquarium opens, enhancing the Museum’s aquatic interpretive offerings and spotlighting regional river systems and Gulf of California ecosystems.

2016:

Focused on the science and management of invasive weeds (primarily buffelgrass), Save Our Saguaros (SOS) aims to sustainably support biodiversity while mitigating the fire threat of invasive species for plants, wildlife, and people.

2016:

Stingray Touch, an interactive exhibit capturing integral elements of the Gulf of California, opens.

2018:

The Museum opens Packrat Playhouse, a learning-at-play experience modeled on packrat middens and featuring whimsical playground structures modeled on local plants and animals.

2019:

Working with the University of Arizona and Pima Community College, the Museum initiates an ongoing project to catalog the diversity and ecology of an estimated 1,000 bee species in the region, one of the most bee-diverse in the world.

2023:

Building on a long history of ethnobotanical research, teaching, and outreach, the Museum re-establishes a research program to understand and conserve the wild relatives of modern-day crops and expand the regional food system to include arid-adapted native foods.

2026:

Spadefoot Splash, an exhibit focused on the message that “water is life,” opens and includes a streamside play area, nature loop trail, conservation station, and art activities for our youngest guests.

2028:

After long and careful planning and integrating education about conservation and advocacy, the Mexican Gray Wolf exhibit opens.