Award Recognition given to Tom Orum and Nancy Ferguson
Posted May 24, 2023
Saguaro National Park invited the Tucson’s native plant community to attend an award ceremony for Tom Orum and Nancy Ferguson at Saguaro National Park East on Friday June 2, 2023 at 6:00 PM. Tom and Nancy received the Raymond M. Turner Award for lifetime achievement in science at Saguaro National Park. The award, named in honor of the late Sonoran Desert ecologist Ray Turner, celebrates Tom and Nancy’s nearly five decades of monitoring of saguaros in the park on plots that have been surveyed every year since 1941.
Tom and Nancy are the third generation of researchers on these plots, and they continued their monitoring long after their retirement from University of Arizona. They have always been generous of their time and knowledge of saguaros to the park and the research community. Saguaro National Park wishes to express our gratitude for their years of service in science to our park. A link to Tom and Nancy’s 2016 article in PLOS ONE is here: Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) Mortality and Population Regeneration in the Cactus Forest of Saguaro National Park: Seventy-Five Years and Counting | PLOS ONE
