Pablo Guerrero has been visiting cacti in the Atacama Desert his whole life, first on family trips to the Chilean coast and later as a researcher studying the impacts of climate change and illegal ...

Meanwhile, cacti flowers, fruits and water-filled tissues provide food and hydration to desert animals. Some woodpeckers drill nest holes into cacti stems, then return the next year to live in them.

But the only secluded shady spots in the desert are often right next to a cholla cactus, so contact is inevitable! But even worse was the array of dislodged pads on or in the ground already ...