Skye Siegel can still remember the first time she heard the word “Weedwackers.” 

It was at one of the new group’s first planning meetings, in the fall of 1999. Recognizing the growing threat that exotic weeds posed to the Sonoran Desert, a small band of volunteers had gathered forces, vowing to fight the spread of buffelgrass and other invasive plants across the land. Every month, the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers hike out to the desert to remove buffelgrass, an invasive grass species that threatens the desert ecosystem. 

“People were throwing out dozens of names,” remembered Siegel, the group’s founder and now the community engagement coordinator at Pima County Environmental Quality. 

Then former County employee Gary Bachman came up with “Weedwackers.” With its irresistible alliteration and subtle incorporation of “wacky,” it seemed to put just the right spin on the group’s unusual mission. 

It was the beginning of one of Pima County’s unlikeliest success stories – how a group of determined volunteers fought the spread of buffelgrass, month by month, for more than a quarter of a century. 

Pulling for the team

Rachel Loubeau long ago lost track of how many buffelgrass pulls she’s joined. She has been volunteering with the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers for more than two decades. 

“It feels like a necessity for a lover of nature,” said Loubeau, a GIS technician for Pima County Flood Control. “Many years ago, when I found out about buffelgrass’ impact and learned how to identify it, I saw it everywhere! You can’t unsee it.” 

At least three times a month, a hardy group of volunteers, led by County staff, trek out to various County-owned properties – most often in Tucson Mountain Park – to painstakingly dig buffelgrass and other invasive plants out of the ground. 

The buffelgrass pulls – as the events are aptly called – are held every second and fourth Wednesday and every third Saturday of the month. First-time volunteers are encouraged to join on Saturdays, which feature easier hikes and are less demanding. 

Even outside of these regular events, many of the volunteers spend additional days each month pulling buffelgrass on their own – a testament to their sheer dedication. It’s fair to say that thousands of acres in Tucson Mountain Park and surrounding areas are currently free of buffelgrass because of the ongoing volunteer efforts.

“They’re really taking care of so much land, and it’s amazing what we’ve been able to get done,” said Ellie Schertz, invasive species program coordinator at Pima County Conservation Lands & Resources (CLR), who currently leads the Weedwackers. 

“I want more people to know that it’s something they can participate in, and to know that they can make a difference.” 

Bristling with menace

Buffelgrass doesn’t look particularly menacing to the untrained eye. To most residents, the desert’s most infamous weed – a thick cluster of green stems and leaves topped with bristly, spike-shaped flowers – is easy to overlook. 

Rachel Loubeau, a GIS technician at Pima County Flood Control, has been volunteering with the Weedwackers for more than 20 years.But appearances can be deceiving. The non-native grass, which was brought to Southern Arizona in the 1930s for erosion control and cattle forage, has drastically spread across the region in recent decades, unbalancing a sensitive desert ecosystem. 

“Buffelgrass is drought-tolerant, and so it spreads easily in our desert landscape,” said Kelsey Landreville, restoration and invasive species program manager at CLR. “It can crowd out native plants just by colonizing prolifically and then using up all the resources in the soil.” 

As buffelgrass consumes water and other nutrients, it makes it harder for saguaros and other native plants to thrive. That means that native animals such as owls, bats and tortoises have fewer food sources and fewer places to take shelter. (Wild animals won’t eat buffelgrass, and it provides scant shelter for all but the smallest animals.) 

Worst of all, buffelgrass burns at much higher temperatures than native plants, which means that it can cause devastating desert fires. 

Buffelgrass might look harmless enough, but it poses a dire threat to the desert. Loubeau said it’s that awareness that keeps her and her fellow volunteers in the field every month. 

“I want to protect my desert home and all who live in it,” Loubeau said. “I have seen the positive results from the tireless efforts of volunteers over the years, and we do make a difference.” 

Getting to the root of the problem

Tracing the beginnings of Pima County’s oldest buffelgrass-battling volunteer group can be as tricky as digging up a particularly stubborn weed. Buffelgrass has spread across Southern Arizona in recent decades, threatening to unbalance the desert ecosystem.

One thing is certain: The group that would become the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers held their very first buffelgrass pull in January 2000, beginning life as the Tucson Mountain Weedwackers before widening their scope to cover other sites. 

Initially, the Weedwackers were sponsored by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (ASDM), where Siegel was then the museum’s botany curator. She worked with Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation (now Pima County Parks and Recreation), Arizona Native Plant Society, Tucson Botanical Gardens, and other local partners to make the events happen every month. 

“I gathered key financial and material resources by recruiting support from ASDM, Pima County and many other community partners to make the Weedwackers a sustainable reality,” she said. “I was inspired by botanist Sue Rutman and the volunteers fighting buffelgrass at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in the 1990s.” 

In 2002, Pima County took over sponsorship of the group. Doug Siegel, a now-retired natural resources specialist at the County’s Parks department – and Skye’s husband, whom she met at the very first Weedwackers meeting – took over management of the group, a job he embraced for the next 20 years, leaving a strong legacy for others like Landreville and Schertz to continue on. 

“Doug’s leadership of the Weedwackers is considered just as significant as the efforts of the volunteers themselves,” Landreville said, noting that the Weedwackers had thrived where many other volunteer groups had fizzled out.  

“For two decades he provided necessary structure and consistency for the group, created welcoming and fun experiences, dedicated hours of personal time to planning and preparing for events, and generously shared his knowledge and friendship with volunteers – altogether ensuring that the Weedwackers group wouldn’t fall apart.” 

“Folks were coming to us, learning from us, and then going back to their neighborhoods and focusing on their own backyards,” Skye Siegel said. 

Doug Siegel, who led the Weedwackers for more than two decades, is credited with leaving a strong legacy for the group to follow.The group’s efforts haven’t gone unappreciated. In 2024, the Pima County Board of Supervisors honored the Weedwackers and all invasive species volunteers by proclaiming March 5, 2024, as Invasive Species Volunteer Appreciation Day. 

In 2025, the Weedwackers and the CLR Restoration & Invasive Species program were collectively presented with the Weed Manager of the Year Award by the Southwest Vegetation Management Association. 

Planning for the future

The Weedwackers are part of a tuft of County programs that sprang from the same soil: concern for the future of the Sonoran Desert and determination to protect the desert ecosystem. 

Indeed, the group’s mission aligns well with a plan that developed around the same time: the County’s award-winning Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (SDCP), which first went into effect in 2001 and celebrates its quarter-century anniversary this year. 

The SDCP, a blueprint for balancing responsible development with protection of important natural and cultural resources, has helped the County protect more than 260,000 acres of desert land over the last 25 years. It has also guided the County’s efforts to support endangered and threatened species, from the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl to the Pima pineapple cactus. 

“I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence that the SDCP was being developed and that people started to get involved in these vigilante buffelgrass removal efforts around the same time,” Landreville said. “There was already recognition of the importance of this space that we live in and the value of our native plants and wildlife.” 

For Schertz, protecting the integrity of the desert ecosystem is essential to the Weedwackers’ mission. 

“Sometimes I think people have this idea that if we just set aside conservation land, that it takes care of itself and everything is great,” she said. 

“But it’s important that we play a role in taking care of it, because humans are the ones who introduced buffelgrass to this region. So we have a responsibility to go in and take care of the land and make sure it’s healthy.” 

If you’re interested in signing up for an upcoming Weedwackers pull, register here or sign up for their email list. 

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