TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Mexico's flag, which has flown alongside an American flag for more than 50 years at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson, has been hauled down after escalating complaints in the past year or so.

The two flags have been used to reflect the bi-national focus of the museum on the Sonoran Desert, which encompasses portions of both countries.

The desert takes in parts of southern Arizona and California as well as the Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur.

The museum's staff began noticing complaints probably about a year ago, spokesman Tim Vimmerstedt said.

"A lot of it has to do with confusion as to why we were flying the Mexican flag, which been flying since 1954," he said. The flag was flown "to speak to the binationality," Vimmerstedt said. "We probably could have done a better job with signage concerning that fact."

Vimmerstedt said he believes increasing focus on the border issues is driving the complaints, although no one raised the issue of illegal immigration or immigration reform.

"They mainly just questioned why we were doing this, this is United States soil," he said. Visitors - a few a week - were asking "why the Mexican flag was flying over a private nonprofit organization on United States soil."

"We decided we would be better able to better tell that linkage through a signage package, which will speak to the two nations and five states that it encompasses," Vimmerstedt said.

Arizona continues to be the focal point for illegal immigrant crossings along the entire length of the Mexican border. In addition, many Arizonans remain angry over the national debate on immigration reform earlier this year, which the U.S. Senate failed to resolve.

Others believe that comprehensive reform that includes a guest worker program is needed. Yet public sentiment apparently favors securing the borders from illegal entry of migrants and drugs, and sanctions on employers to assure their workers are in the country legally, before addressing the guest worker issue.

The museum is a zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, with paths through 21 acres of desert, and animals kept in realistic natural landscapes.

The museum's board of trustees voted to lower the flag last month, he said. It came down Tuesday. Mexican consular officials were not notified.

Before the decision to take down the Mexican flag, the museum had mistakenly flown it at the same height as the U.S. flag, Vimmerstedt said.

Protocol calls for the U.S. flag to be flown above that of another country over private buildings, and the mistake was corrected, he said.

About 70 percent of the museum's visitors come from out-of-state.

He said he is hopeful the signage the museum is producing to explain the desert's two-country makeup will be posted within 30 days.

"This isn't to say that we won't fly that flag again in the future," he said.

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On the Net:

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: http://www.desertmuseum.org

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