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Diane McCollum's East Side center for wildlife rehabilitation contains 80 empty aquariums, four empty incubators and an empty aviary.

"Last year by the end of January, I had over 100 baby bunnies. This year, I have yet to see one," said McCollum, who receives and treats sick, injured, abandoned and orphaned animals. "I have not seen one baby bird. Not one."

That's one of many signs around Tucson that the extraordinarily dry weather of the last six months has severely cut back on breeding of Sonoran Desert wildlife.

This year's crop of baby birds, bunnies, snakes, fish, lizards and frogs is already the lowest in many years and should continue to be far lower than normal, scientists and wildlife rehabilitators say.

The drought means fewer plants for small animals to eat, which means they have less energy for breeding and raising young.

Assuming the dry spell continues as forecast into the early summer, it's likely that even some adult creatures — particularly fish and frogs, and possibly javelina, deer and even mountain lions —will ultimately die from a lack of water, say University of Arizona research scientist Phil Rosen, National Park Service biologist Don Swann and state Game and Fish wildlife specialist Elyssa Ostergaard.

Usually by this time of the year, three or four mourning dove pairs have built nests around Nancy Godwin's East Side home. This year, however, only one dove pair has started nesting — this week, two weeks later than normal.

Godwin, who lives on an acre near Old Spanish Trail and Houghton Road, said she is saddened by the lack of breeding because she likes to see everything in balance, with animals having enough water and food.

"Looking at the place, everything out here is just shriveled up," she said of the desert plants that also have suffered from the extended drought. "Everything is disheartening. There's not too much greenery out there. There's less wildlife when I'm out hiking."

 Other symptoms of the drought:

 ● At Forever Wild, another East Side wildlife rehab center, owner Darlene Braastad had 200 baby quail brought in last year but has seen none so far this year. Baby doves, sparrows and finches usually are brimming in her center as well by now, but only one dove has arrived this year.

● At Saguaro National Park East, it's a little too soon to say there will no frog reproduction this year, but lowland leopard frog numbers already are down compared to past years when rain fell, Swann said. The leopard frogs live in pools, ponds and water holes in canyons, and Swann said he's never seen so many of those dried up in his 10 years at the park.

● So far, "we've had nothing, no rabbits or baby birds," at Wildlife Rehabilitation for Northwest Tucson, said operator Louis Miller. "Normally we probably have a dozen at this time of the year. It's still early, but there's nothing. We expect it will continue that way."

● While most snakes and lizards will be able to wait out the drought in underground areas where the humidity is high enough to keep them going, in some places the effects will be severe, UA's Rosen said. Some lizards could die of starvation or desiccation. A drought this severe could also dry up ranchers' stock ponds and springs where leopard frogs live.

Miller said this is a sad situation, but there's nothing anyone can do about it. "I'm afraid it's going to be a fact of life, and will be quite a few years before this effect will be remedied."

The park service's Swann is more philosophical: "If we didn't have droughts at some times, it wouldn't be a desert," he said.