Joshua trees, which primarily grow in the Mojave Desert, dot the landscape of Gold Butte National Monument. Credit: James Card.
A petroglyph site near 21 Goats shows a tortoise and bull’s-eyes. These drawings show how early Native Americans could have survived in the Mojave Desert. Credit: James Card.
Excerpt:
When I spotted the goats, I made a sound that was a cross between a gasp and a hiccup. Although the site is called 21 Goats, the petroglyphs are commonly interpreted to be desert bighorn sheep, the monarch of the Mojave Desert. The bighorn is considered one of the greatest trophies among modern hunters. Among the sheep were snakey lines and bull’s-eye circles.
This collection of petroglyphs is one of the reasons Gold Butte is one of America’s newest national monuments. It was designated by President Barack Obama during his last days in office using the Antiquities Act, which gives presidents the authority to create national monuments. The Gold Butte proclamation protected 296,937 acres of land. However, some people think that is too much, and that caught the attention of the Trump administration. In April, President Trump issued an executive order calling for a review of 27 monuments. He asked Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to lead the review and make recommendations to possibly rescind the monument status, reduce the acreage or let it stand. Presidents have amended national monuments, but none have ever delisted one.
Of the monuments to be reviewed, Gold Butte may be the least known. Even Google Maps hasn’t recognized its borders as a national monument yet. On the interactive map, the area of Gold Butte remains white while all the surrounding lands that have some sort of protected status are demarked in public-place green.
Gold Butte was deemed worthy of monument designation for historical and cultural assets but also for environmental and conservation reasons. It is where the Great Basin, Mojave Desert and Colorado Plateau merge. The Joshua trees are a rare and iconic American treasure and Gold Butte has plenty of them, along with its cousin, the Mojave yucca. It holds multiple subspecies of cholla and prickly pear cactuses. All of the plants take a long time to grow. The barrel cactus that dot the hillsides can live to 130 years. Near 21 Goats, the Las Vegas bearpoppy is being restored. The plant grows only in Clark County, where all of Gold Butte is located, and cannot be transplanted. Near the Devil’s Throat, a giant sinkhole over a hundred feet deep, grassland is being restored after wildfires in 2005.
The desert was surprisingly full of life. Every time I hiked through the scrub, road runners, fence lizards, kangaroo rats and blacktail jackrabbits skittered under the creosote bushes. Up above, I spotted a golden eagle soaring on the drafts, and in the distance, I caught a glimpse of a prairie falcon diving at some doomed ground-dwelling creature.
