The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR) in southern Arizona was established in 1985 to provide habitat for threatened and endangered plant and animal species, with an emphasis on the critically endangered masked bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus ridgwayi). Livestock grazing, fire regime disruption, pronounced drought, non-native grasses and altered arid-land hydrology since the late 1800s have each played a substantial role in transforming semi-desert grasslands.