VANISHING VOICES: Echoes of Extinction in the Desert We Call Home

From soil to silence: the unraveling web

My June 11^th commentary (Losing Ground: The Fight to Save the Soil that Feeds Us) focused on the rapid depletion of arable soil, the foundation of our food security. That’s just one of many environmental issues that have concerned me over the years and about which I’ve wanted to raise awareness through these pages.

But the story doesn’t end with dirt. I’ve also worried about the extinction of species and what that means for our human sustainability and the health of the planet.

I see the health of soil as bound to the insects that till it, the plants that root in it, the animals that feed on those plants, and the humans who depend on it all. The extinction crisis is not an isolated phenomenon, but a collection of interconnected threads in a collapsing web of life.

A sixth extinction!

Scientists warn that we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, this one driven not by an asteroid or volcanic winter, but by human activity and negligence. Habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of the land are pushing creatures off the map at rates hundreds of times faster than nature intended.

As the 2019 United Nations Global Assessment Report warned, up to one million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades due to human activity. Also, a growing body of research has found steep declines in insect populations worldwide, with recent studies highlighting sharp drops in the Southwest, particularly among pollinators vital to the food web. Similar losses in bird populations have been documented by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which reported that North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970. A March 2025 Science study revealed that butterfly populations in the United States have declined by 22% since the year 2000, with Arizona and other parts of the Southwest seeing declines greater than 50%. And a separate 2025 national report on desert birds found that Arizona has lost nearly half of its aridland bird habitats since 1968.

Among the most alarming declines are those of bees, both honeybees and native species, whose pollination services support more than a third of the crops we consume. In Arizona, native desert bees such as the blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) and cactus bees (Diadasia spp.), which specialize in pollinating iconic desert plants such as saguaro and prickly pear, are crucial to maintaining biodiversity in arid ecosystems. But these species are now under increasing pressure from habitat fragmentation, pesticide exposure, disease, and extreme heat. The disappearance of bees isn't just an agricultural problem; it's an ecological alarm bell. Without pollinators, food webs unravel. Wildflowers don’t seed. Fruit trees don’t fruit. What disappears with them is the reproductive rhythm of life itself.

In his 2016 book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, biologist and naturalist Edward O. Wilson proposed setting aside half the planet for nature to stave off mass extinction. He warned that continued species loss would leave us in an “age of loneliness,” where humanity exists in a biologically diminished world, bereft of its natural companions.

Why biodiversity matters

These are not abstract losses. We tend to think of extinction as something that happens elsewhere: the last white rhino or the burning Amazon. But extinction isn’t an event; it’s a process. And it’s happening quietly, incrementally, and invisibly in places we know and love.

When we lose a species, we don’t just lose a puzzle piece in nature’s grand design; we lose a relationship. A fellow traveler on this fragile Earth.

The extinction of species is not just a moral or aesthetic tragedy. It is a direct threat to human survival. Every organism plays a role in sustaining the systems we rely on for clean air, fertile soil, water purification, disease regulation, and climate stability. The disappearance of pollinators jeopardizes global food security; the loss of amphibians and freshwater species signals the unraveling of aquatic ecosystems we depend on for drinking water and agriculture. As biodiversity declines, ecosystems become more fragile and less able to adapt to change—whether it’s a drought, a pandemic, or a shifting climate. We are eroding the very foundations that make human life possible, trading long-term viability for short-term convenience. In the end, we are neither separate from nor superior to nature; we are a part of it. Our future resilience depends entirely on the integrity of the natural systems we are steadily dismantling.

The desert’s diminishing chorus

To grasp what this loss means on the ground, let’s zoom in on Arizona, where these global trends manifest vividly. The state, with its sweeping deserts, mountain sanctuaries, and unique biodiversity is a microcosm of the crisis.

There are places here where the disappearance of the species is beginning to feel unnatural. Along once-thriving desert washes and in the shaded canyons of the Sky Islands (the mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico, known as the Madrean Archipelago), naturalists are noticing what’s missing: buzzing insects, rustling lizards, and birdsong. Or, walk through the high country of the Chiricahuas or across the vast flats of the Sonoran Desert, and there’s a subtle hush where there should be a pulse of life. It’s a silence that speaks volumes.

The Chiricahua leopard frog (Lithobates chiricahuensis), federally listed as threatened, remains reliant on riparian refuges in Arizona’s high-country canyons.

Frog, bat, owl, bee: Stories of struggle

Take the Chiricahua leopard frog, for example. Once common across southeastern Arizona, it now survives only in isolated pockets, thanks to the dedicated efforts of conservation biologists, state wildlife officials, and habitat restoration volunteers working to restore its wetland habitats. To take action to preserve the species, the Phoenix Zoo and its partners have released over 29,000 frogs through captive breeding and reintroduction efforts in Arizona since 1995.

Or consider the lesser long-nosed bat, whose seasonal migrations are timed with the blooming of saguaro and agave. For years, it hovered on the edge of extinction, even as it played a vital pollination role in the desert’s ecosystem. It’s been brought back, removed from the Endangered Species list in 2018, a rare success story, but even victories like this feel fragile.

Then there’s the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, no bigger than a coffee mug, whose habitat has been carved up by development, roads, and border infrastructure. A single species, but also a barometer of how we value the land we live on. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Sky Islands, already noted as among the most biologically diverse places in North America, creatures like the Mexican spotted owl, once sheltered in the cool upper elevations, are running out of places to go as the mountains warm. These isolated peaks, once refuges, are becoming ecological dead ends.

Each of these creatures (owl, bat, frog, bee) is more than a statistic or symbol. They are voices in a larger chorus, and as each one fades, the silence grows more profound. The desert doesn’t go quiet all at once. It disappears note by note, call by call, until one day we notice what’s no longer there.

The challenge

I wonder what future generations will remember of Arizona’s wild voices. Will they know the strange beauty of a Gila monster sunning on a rock? The sound of a canyon wren’s descending song? The pollination dance of bats under a full moon?

Arizona still holds irreplaceable beauty. But it asks us for something in return: attention, protection, humility. We can’t recreate ecosystems once they’re gone. There’s no substitute for a vanished species, no algorithm for a vanished soul.

Maybe the silence we’re noticing isn’t just ecological. Maybe it’s spiritual, too.

We are thus left with the following questions: What happens to a society that forgets how to be in relationship with the living world around it? What kind of state, what kind of nation, lets the songs of its land go silent without taking action?

To provide answers to these questions, we must accept the fact that we all have a moral responsibility to be effective stewards of the land and lives around us. Only by rekindling our relationship with the living world can we ensure that future generations inherit more than a silent, empty shell of what once was.

Let us act before the voices vanish entirely—and silence becomes the only sound we leave behind.

References

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Cane, J. H. (2021). The fate of native bees in American deserts: Insights from long-term studies. Journal of Pollination Ecology, 28(3), 45–54. https://doi.org/10.26786/1920-7603(2021)654

Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P. R., & Dirzo, R. (2017). Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), E6089–E6096. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704949114

Edwards, C. C., Forister, M. L., Hallmann, C. A., HilleRisLambers, J., McClure, C. J. W., & Wepprich, T. (2025). Rapid butterfly declines across the United States during the 21st century. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado4567
(Note: Verify DOI upon final publication.)

Hallmann, C. A., Sorg, M., Jongejans, E., Siepel, H., Hofland, N., Schwan, H., Stenmans, W., Müller, A., Sumser, H., Hörren, T., Goulson, D., & de Kroon, H. (2017). More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas. PLOS ONE, 12(10), e0185809. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. https://ipbes.net/global-assessment

Rosenberg, K. V., Dokter, A. M., Blancher, P. J., Sauer, J. R., Smith, A. C., Smith, P. A., Stanton, J. C., Panjabi, A., Helft, L., Parr, M., & Marra, P. P. (2019). Decline of the North American avifauna. Science, 366(6461), 120–124. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaw1313

Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-Earth: Our planet’s fight for life. Liveright Publishing.