Hal Gras, left, became synonymous with the Desert Museum. Gras, who died in 1999, ran the Desert Ark animal program.

Javelina, which travel in groups that include elders and babies, are among the many animals at the museum.

Over 50 years, its fame has grown as thousands have discovered region's magic

We're having a birthday celebration, not for just one day but for the entire year of 2002. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum will be 50 years old on Labor Day in September 2002.

For half a century, since 1952, the museum has displayed the living plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, Southern California, and Sonora and Baja California, Mexico. In this way the people of Tucson, and visitors who come to the museum from around the world, have been able to learn about the desert and the importance of all its living things. They have learned it is the responsibility of all people to protect the desert, as well as other biomes, such as forests, jungles and oceans.

If the Desert Museum animals could talk - and sometimes it almost seems as though they can - they would tell you how famous the museum has become for the ways it displays animals and plants. They would also tell you that they are much more comfortable in their present enclosures than the earlier animals were in theirs.

In 1952, the large mammals lived in cement and chain-link-fence cages. Since then, the museum staff has learned how to make artificial rocks and boulders, and invented Invisinet, a net-type fencing that outlines the animals' enclosures and is nearly invisible to human viewers.

The results today are large enclosures, open to the sky and planted with desert vegetation to provide comfortable, natural habitats for the animals.

The animals might also tell you how the museum has worked for years to save endangered animals, helping with the Mexican gray wolf breeding program, and studying ways to aid the survival of certain desert plants, fish, reptiles, mammals and birds.

Speaking of the birds, they probably would interrupt to let you know about a relatively new event, the Raptor Free Flight Program, in which hawks, an owl and a roadrunner are presented in free flight on the museum grounds, returning to their handlers when a signal is given.

A man named William H. Carr had the idea for building the museum, and another gentleman, Arthur N. Pack, helped find the money to do so. Both believed it was very important to educate people, especially children, about plants, animals, and their relationships to one another and to mankind.

During your conversation with the museum's animals, the mountain lion, as chief spokesman, would proudly point out the importance of the museum's animals, for with some assistance from human staff members, they have helped thousands of young people understand desert ecology.

Summer camps, field trips, special classes and family activities have involved thousands of young people over the years.

For more than 30 years, Hal Gras drove a station wagon known as the Desert Ark to schools. In it he carried a variety of animals, such as badgers, porcupines, snakes, ringtail cats, and sometimes special young animals, such as a baby mountain lion.

Today the museum's Desert Trek Outreach Programs provide special educational classes in schools when requested. The Amigos del Desierto Program concentrates bilingual, natural history educational activities in a different school each year. And classes visiting the museum on field trips get suggested activities for both before and after their visit.

The Coati Club is a special organization for boys and girls ages 6 to 12. For teen-agers there is the Junior Docent Program, in which participants study desert ecology and provide useful services to the museum on a regular schedule.

This program of teen-agers working at the museum today is similar to the museum's earliest years, when a number of teen-agers helped Mr. Carr build paths and care for the animals.

One of these teen-agers became the museum's youngest permanent employee at age 18, eventually being named curator of small animals. Two other teen-age helpers went on to receive their Ph.D. degrees in biology and taught at branches of the University of California.

And in speaking to you, the museum animals would tell you the latest exciting animal news at the museum. It's the arrival of two bighorn lambs just in time for the museum's 50th birthday celebration. No doubt the animals will be busy for some time informing the new arrivals of the proud heritage they will share for educating, entertaining and enriching the lives of children who visit them.

* Peggy Larson is history project coordinator for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a librarian and an expert on books for young readers.

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