Climate Change Wiped Out Thousands of the West’s Most Iconic Cactus. Can Planting More Help a Species that Takes a Century to Mature?

By Wyatt Myskow

TUCSON, Ariz.—Jerry McHale dug a small hole with a shovel near the base of a Palo Verde tree and placed a cactus a few inches tall in it. The saguaro was just old enough to sprout the needles it needs to keep desert rats and jackrabbits from devouring it. One by one, McHale and a small group of volunteers planted the young cactuses under “nursing plants” that will help them grow, some to nearly 40 feet tall, over the coming centuries at the Tucson Audubon Society’s Mason Center.