ALIVE AND WELLTHANKS TO BAD SCIENCE, RUMORS OF THE SAGUARO'S DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED

McAuliffe is careful not to overgeneralize. "The monument is not the whole story of saguaros," he says. "That's just the very tip of the species." But he will say that this cactus-research story, at least as it applies to the cactus in Saguaro National Monument, has a happy ending. "The saguaro is not going extinct, not declining on a wholesale basis because of any mysterious malady or because of air pollution," he says. "The saguaro population is not declining in Arizona or in Sonora, Mexico. The population that did locally decline at the Saguaro National Monument is rebounding now. There are many, many young saguaros, most not even knee-high yet, that are someday going to be another saguaro forest.