The Arizona Game and Fish Department hauls more than 1 million gallons of water to about 3,000 watering points each year, and the demand has grown as the drought deepens.

Some water catchments are so remote, only helicopters can deliver refills. The same equipment used to dump water on wildfires is used.

Arizona’s wildlife is well adapted to arid conditions, but the relentless drought has challenged the animals.

One May night, a lone coyote emerged from a dry desert wash outside Phoenix, ducked beneath the metal bar of a specially-designed livestock fence, walked up a concrete ramp, and took its nightly drink of water from an artificial oasis, maintained and refilled by the state of Arizona.

After the coyote left, a gray fox, trotting on its tiny paws, slunk under the same fence and drank. Hours later, a great horned owl landed silently at the water’s edge and dipped its beak. A herd of mule deer followed, towing a yearling fawn, and then dawn broke, and the watering hole fell to daytime visitors: quail, ravens, vultures, doves and the occasional lizard.

The “Teddy Bear” water catchment, nicknamed for the teddy bear cholla that grows around it, is among thousands managed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Built to boost game numbers for hunting and compensate for habitat fragmentation, the watering points have satisfied thirsty animals since the 1940s.

When they were built, many of the catchments thrived on more consistent rains. But now, state officials say the drought has forced them to use trucks, and even helicopters, to keep most of the catchments full.

Teddy Bear, or catchment No. 436, is one of the “easiest” watering points to access, according to Joe Currie, Game and Fish habitat planning program manager. Built to draw deer away from the CAP Canal, Teddy Bear lies at the end of a rebellious dirt road off the Carefree Highway west of Lake Pleasant, which drops through two desert washes and jostles Currie in the driver’s seat of a Game and Fish pickup.

“There are some where you travel all day on a dirt road, and you barely get to it,” Currie said.

At the site, a sheet of metal like the roof of a buried house directs rainwater into a gutter, which feeds it into an underground tank. A few yards away, the water resurfaces as a square of slick green in the broken desert earth, buzzing with honey bees and a few butterflies.

Currie said he has found salamanders and even goldfish (probably discarded human pets) in the catchments, and watering points are almost always covered in bees, though he has only been stung once, on the nose, while working at the catchments.

A fence surrounds the catchment, keeping livestock out, and a barely visible game trail cuts in toward the water from one corner. Currie noted that many animals can only live a few days without water or water-rich food, meaning the catchments are a great support for creatures who live in the “unforgiving country” of Arizona’s deserts.

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Persistent drought leaves wildlife in need of more help

Game and Fish hauls, on average, more than 1 million gallons of water to nearly 3,000 watering points each year. But as severe drought deepened in Arizona in 2024, hauling has picked up.

On top of decades of long-term drought throughout the Southwest, Arizona has suffered its hottest summer on record in 2024 and a near-record dry spell back-to-back, with short-term drought conditions persisting through much of the first half of 2025.

Some spring storm systems brought snow and rain across much of the state, though it may not have been enough to offset months of extreme drought. Every region of Arizona has been under an official drought designation since January.

Jessica Moreno, conservation science director at the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection in Tucson, noted that saguaros have been opening blossoms lower on their trunks than usual this year, usually a response to high stress.

“We have literally not stopped hauling water since April of last year,” Currie said in April 2025.

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management own two-thirds of the sites, vestiges from a time when those departments had robust wildlife management programs. Today, the agencies have no budget to maintain the catchments, so the state has taken responsibility for the entire network. Arizona spends roughly $1 million each year maintaining the catchments.

Helicopter deliveries, which involve the same equipment used to dump water on wildfires, cost more than $10,000 each. The department maintains a donation program where donors have contributed $1.3 million since 2018.

Currie said the state hauls water to a “considerable majority” of their catchments, possibly as many as 90%. The state is replacing some of the catchments with bigger ones, designed to take better advantage of the sparser rains that have become Arizona’s new normal. Still, the rate of replacement is slow — only 15-20 per year, according to Currie.

“There were much wetter, much more predictable weather patterns then, and so when they made them back then, they made them smaller,” Currie said.

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If you think of yourself as a deer, ‘it’s pretty rough’ out there

Arizona’s wildlife is well-adapted for dry conditions, according to Game and Fish Wildlife Biologist Jim Heffelfinger. Desert mule deer, for instance, give birth to their young more than two months later than mule deer in wetter environments, lining up their fawning season with the vegetation that comes from summer monsoon storms.

Jason Miller, who runs a YouTube channel posting regular wildlife videos from his trail cameras in southern Arizona, said animals in the Tucson area have managed the recent dryness fairly well, often finding water in places he would never think to look: “They’re resilient, they know all the honey holes.”

But Heffelfinger said even these animals can use support.

“If you’re out there in the desert right now, and you think of yourself as a deer, it’s pretty tough,” Heffelfinger said.

That’s especially true when human development has cut animals off from water or food sources. The Central Arizona Project Canal, for instance, brings vital water to the state’s growing cities, but stands between some wildlife and their own natural springs. And while the canal is stitched with dozens of wildlife crossings, most of Arizona’s highways are not, and urban sprawl continues consuming the desert around big cities like Phoenix.

At Game and Fish headquarters in north Phoenix, Currie looks out the windshield at the monumental cluster of pipes and blocks that make up Arizona’s new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company factory. The Carefree Highway whooshes with traffic in the foreground, apartment buildings stud the hills to the east, and the CAP Canal glows with evening light in the west. All of it, at one point, was desert, Currie points out. Meanwhile, he notes that human-made wells have lowered the groundwater across the state, drying springs and creeks.

“We’ve actually dried out the state with what we’ve done,” Currie said.

Deer may be especially tempted to wander through the concrete mazes of human infrastructure during drought times, when distant rains can draw them hundreds of miles to find food and water. Biologists have monitored deer near Yuma walking up to 20 miles to reach the areas watered by rainstorms. Barriers like highways and canals make those journeys impossible or dangerous, Heffelfinger said.

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Dry conditions can change wildlife behavior

Game and Fish estimates in 1972 found that 90% of the deer herd in a similar area near Yuma had died from drowning while attempting to drink from the Gila Project canal. (That estimate spurred developers to build exit ramps and watering points around the CAP Canal.)

If they’re stuck in one dry area, Heffelfinger said deer can struggle to digest the desiccated vegetation. Deer, like cows, spit up their food multiple times per day, re-chew it and swallow again. That process doesn’t work when the animal’s food is dry and crispy.

Deer stuck in dry areas might also give birth to fewer fawns. Heffelfinger said does need good nutrition from December through August to give birth to healthy fawns. After a dry fall and a fairly dry winter, Heffelfinger doesn’t expect the fawning season to be strong in 2025.

And the same goes for a range of other species. Heffelfinger said he was waiting at a stoplight in early May when the driver in the car next to him rolled down his window and asked, “How’s the quail outlook this year?”

Heffelfinger had to tell the stranger he wasn’t expecting good quail numbers. He said quail need good rainfall from October to March to lay their eggs, and when they don’t get that moisture, they “just opt out” of laying eggs that year.

Arizona has invested in wildlife linkages — bridges, tunnels, and green corridors for animals crossing highways and neighborhoods — which can help critters reach the water and food they need in dry times. The state has seen a modest spurt in wildlife crossings built throughout the state over the last decade, including tunnels and bridges in areas ranging from pine forests to southern deserts.

The Central Arizona Project also has 30 crossings dispersed along the canal system. Moreno, from the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, said wildlife linkages also support genetic diversity in animal populations and allow wildlife to adjust to the effects of climate change.

The water catchments provide a different kind of support, making life easier in the places where animals already live. Moreno said that service is also helpful, especially for wildlife in remote areas.

“If the water table drops, if we have less rainfall that year, or less snow melt up on the mountain, then animals have to go elsewhere to find what they need,” Moreno said. “So the water catchment project is, I think, a very important and effective one.”

For Heffelfinger, the best way to understand these systems and serve wildlife is to think like an animal. Whenever he goes into the field, Heffelfinger said he tries to think as if he were a deer. Where would he find forage? Shade? Water? Thinking that way changes the landscape, he said, drawing out different aspects that might not stand out to people.

And it helps him feel awe at the daily struggles of creatures that live so differently from humans.

“It’s a good perspective … it gives you a great appreciation for wild animals and what they face out there,” Heffelfinger said. “It’s pretty amazing that the way they make a living.”

Austin Corona covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to austin.corona@arizonarepublic.com.

Environmental coverage on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

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