Category Archives: newmexico

Mogollon, newmexico

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, New Mexico

Posted 20 photos from Three Rivers Petroglyph Park, south of Carrizozo, New Mexico. A short hike takes you past hundreds of glyphs, surrounded by magnificent scenery.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021997&id=1108374610&l=e1bb1cf39e

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This site is managed by the BLM. Entrance fee was $3. There is a small, bleak RV campground on site. A dozen miles east toward the White Mountains takes you to a nice Forest Service campground and a trail into the White Mountains Wilderness Area.

For some history and other pix, see http://gamblershouse.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/the-real-three-rivers/

newmexico

White Sands to waive entrance fees 3 weekends

White Sands National Monument will waive entrance fees for three weekends this summer to encourage visitors. Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider says during these tough economic times, families will have a chance to explore White Sands’ spectacular geography for free.

The free weekends will be this Saturday and Sunday, July 18-19 and August 15-16. The fee waiver doesn’t include camping fees or special use permits.

The free weekends are part of a National Park Service effort to provide free weekends at 390 parks across the country to promote local and regional tourism. — Information from: Alamogordo Daily News, http://www.alamogordonews.com

Associated Press headlines with Santa Fe news – SantaFeNewMexican.com

daytrips, newmexico

UNM Today: Field Guide to Middle Rio Grande Bosque Released by UNM Press and UNM Biology Researchers

Extending from the spillway below Cochiti Dam, about 50 miles north of Albuquerque, to the headwaters of Elephant Butte Reservoir, near Truth or Consequences in the southern portion of New Mexico, the Middle Rio Grande Bosque is more than a cottonwood woodland or forest. It is a complete riverside ecosystem, among the more important in the world’s arid regions.

“A Field Guide to the Plants and Animals of the Middle Rio Grande Bosque” [Penned by biology researchers at the University of New Mexico including Jean-Luc E. Cartron, David C. Lightfoot, Jane E. Mygatt, Sandra L. Brantley, and Timothy K. Lowrey] provides nearly 400 pages of information, features 800 color photographs and descriptions of more than 700 plants and animals in the Middle Rio Grande Bosque.

This authoritative guide reveals the important role of a unique riverside ecosystem. As the first of its kind for the Middle Rio Grande Bosque, the guide provides an invaluable resource for land managers, teachers, students, eco-buffs and nature enthusiasts. …

The next event will be held Friday, Dec. 5 in conjunction with Faculty & Staff Appreciation Day at the UNM Bookstore. The book-signing at the UNM Bookstore, located at Central and Cornell N.E., will be held from 12 to 2 p.m.

Other signings include the Rio Grande Nature Center on Jan. 10 and Bookworks on Jan. 11. Bookworks is located in the Flying Star Plaza at 4022 Rio Grande N.W., while the Rio Grande Nature Center is located at 2901 Candelaria Rd., N.W. Those book-signings begin at 5:30 p.m. at each location.

For more information visit UNM Press at: http://unmpress.unm.edu/.

newmexico, wildlife

Protecting Cougars

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Coexisting with Cougars (NM Wilderness Alliance www.nmwild.org)

New Mexico Game Department Regulations
Permit the Overkill of Cougars

Cougars count—let’s count them all. New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF) regulations allow for the liberal killing of cougars. Make your voice heard and send a free fax to the New Mexico Game Commission, telling them you want to see cougars protected in New Mexico!

Send your fax here

Talking Points

Over 40% of all the cougars killed in New Mexico are females.  Females in the crosshairs result in many uncounted orphaned kittens. This is biologically unsustainable and ethically indefensible.

Cougars killed on private lands, in big horn sheep areas, or for livestock conflicts are not counted as part of the total hunting quota. Some landowners exploit the public’s wildlife for private profit.

The state pays a private trapper tens of thousands of dollars each year to kill cougars in certain game units to “prevent” livestock losses; a system that’s ripe for corruption. Those in agribusiness should rely on non-lethal animal husbandry practices, not expect a state-sponsored handout. 

PLEASE SEND A LETTER BY July 22, 2008, to the New Mexico Game Commission. http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/

newmexico, wildlife

Los Lobos

Wildlife Agency Is ‘Collaborating’ Gray Wolf to Death, By Michael J. Robinson, Center for Biological Diversity

       One runs a risk rejecting a call for a "reasonable compromise" issued by a public official inveighing against "polarized groups." But the endangered Mexican gray wolf has been compromised so many times, and consequently is so close to extinction, that we must scrutinize any proposed compromise. …

The recovery area’s carrying capacity was analyzed in the 2001 three-year review, also known as the Paquet Report for its lead author, Paul C. Paquet of the University of Calgary. Paquet is one of the world’s leading wolf biologists, and his three colleagues in the review brought additional expertise in wolf recovery, population demographics and statistical analysis.

    Unlike the authors of the five-year review, none of the authors of the three-year review are affiliated with government agencies, and three of them are in academia. The Paquet Report concluded, looking at elk and deer availability and not counting bighorn sheep, pronghorn, javelina and beaver, all of which wolves eat, that the recovery area could support between 213 and 468 wolves.

    But this past January, a year after the area was projected to reach the reintroduction project’s goal of 100 wolves with an estimated 18 breeding pairs, a count revealed only 52 wolves and three breeding pairs.

– – – – –

Win-Win Possible for Wolf Recovery, By Benjamin N. Tuggle, Southwest Regional Director, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

– – – – –

Federal agency gets 13,000 comments on wolf plans – Las Cruces Sun-News

The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Many of the more than 13,000 people commenting on how to improve U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to reintroduce the Mexican wolf into the wild either strongly support or object to the program. Problem is, that’s not the question.

The federal agency took public comments from Aug. 7 to Dec. 31 on how best to pursue the wolf reintroduction program, not whether or not the program should exist.

The agency received comments from 13,598 people after its call for public input and divided the responses into 26 topics.

newmexico

a “victory for quiet recreation”

Santa Fe National Forest: Proposal cuts road use in half – SantaFeNewMexican.com

With 4,924 miles of existing roads, the Santa Fe National Forest had the first or second highest density of roads per acre of any national forest in Arizona or New Mexico, depending on if wilderness areas are counted. The proposal calls for leaving 2,309 miles of road open to vehicular use. [1.5 million-acre forest] …

All national forests are creating similar, so-called Travel Management Plans to control increasingly popular off-road recreation under a 2005 Forest Service rule. Unmanaged recreation was identified as one of four major threats to national forests, along with fire, loss of open space and invasive species.

Reaction to the proposal was swift and emotional in both directions.

Santa Fe National Forest: Proposal cuts road use in half – SantaFeNewMexican.com

arizona, newmexico, wildlife

Results of poll on feelings about wolves in NM, AZ – Las Cruces Sun-News

peace, mjh

Results of poll on feelings about wolves in NM, AZ – Las Cruces Sun-News

By The Associated Press

Article Launched: 06/16/2008 12:03:33 PM MDT

ALBUQUERQUE—A look at results from a poll of 1,000 residents of New Mexico and Arizona, half in each state, about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 10-year-old program to reintroduce the Mexican gray wolf on public lands in the two states.

—Sixty-seven percent of Arizonans and 57 percent of New Mexicans favor giving wolves greater protection under the Endangered Species Act; 14 percent of Arizonans and 25 percent of New Mexicans oppose the idea.

—Fifty-one percent of Arizonans and 49 percent of New Mexicans believe livestock grazing is good for the environment; 16 percent of Arizonans and 19 percent of New Mexicans disagree.

—Sixty-two percent of Arizonans and 53 percent of New Mexicans support letting wolves migrate to suitable habitat in the states; 17 percent of Arizonans and 24 percent of New Mexicans oppose migration.

—Sixty percent of Arizonans rate their overall feelings about wolves as positive; 13 percent are negative and 22 percent are neutral. In New Mexico, 48 percent have overall positive feelings, 19 percent are negative and 26 percent are neutral.

—Sixty percent of Arizonans and half of the New Mexicans surveyed want ranchers to be required to remove or render inedible the carcasses of cattle that die of non-wolf causes—something environmental groups have pushed for.

—Fifty-one percent of Arizonans and 48 percent of New Mexicans support reimbursing ranchers who volunteer to give up their grazing leases.

A portion of the poll calling for respondants to state the first thing that came to mind when thinking about wolves found:

Arizona:

—21 percent: beautiful animal

—14 percent endangered species

—12 percent wild

—6 percent dangerous

—4 percent kill livestock

—13 percent don’t know or won’t say

New Mexico:

—9 percent endangered species

—7 percent beautiful animal

—6 percent wild

—4 percent kill livestock

—3 percent dangerous

—13 percent don’t know or won’t say

———

Information from poll done in April and May by Research & Polling Inc. of Albuquerque. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Results of poll on feelings about wolves in NM, AZ – Las Cruces Sun-News

newmexico, Other Peoples, wildlands

ABQjournal NM: Fight Over Mountain Emotional

peace, mjh

ABQjournal NM: Fight Over Mountain Emotional
By Leslie Linthicum
Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Staff Writer

Mount Taylor and its mesas rise from the desert, and its peak— often capped with snow— reaches 11,301 feet. The mountain can be seen from Albuquerque, 80 miles away, and beckons hikers, hunters, piñon gatherers, and skiers and bikers for an annual quadrathlon.
    Members of Acoma Pueblo call the mountain Kawesktima, "a place of snow." To the Navajo it is Tsoodzil, or "turquoise mountain." The Zunis call it Dewankwi Kyabachu Yalanne or "in the east snow-capped mountain."
    Members of those tribes, along with the Hopis and Lagunas, made the application for a traditional cultural property distinction for the mountain.
    The tribes hold the mountain sacred, and it plays a part in their traditional lives. It is a place where their deities live; where shrines are visited; where feathers, plants and soils are collected for religious uses; and where pilgrimages are made for prayers.
    Members of the tribes said they asked for the state designation after they saw a flurry of uranium exploration permits for the mountain and after some exploration activities disturbed religious shrines and ancestral graves.

ABQjournal NM: Fight Over Mountain Emotional

newmexico, wildlife

Birding Around the Gila

Be sure to read Judy’s latest. Follow her around the edge of the Gila in a great birding expedition. peace, mjh

Following New Mexico’s Southwest Birding Trail « Judy’s Jottings

Further along we are startled when a flash of red and orange shoots from the foliage and lands briefly in the branch of a cottonwood before heading across the river. As we pull out our field guides hoping it is a Flame-colored Tanager, we are equally delighted to identify it as a first spring Summer Tanager.

daytrips, newmexico

Gutierrez Canyon Open Space

New Mexico, Gutierrez Canyon Open Space Expanded to Over 800 Acres (NM): The Trust for Public Land

The property is accessed by a small strip of land just south of the Cedar Springs post office. It is surrounded on the north and east sides by residential development, and abuts Gutierrez Canyon Open Space on the south. Its protection brings the total acreage of Gutierrez Canyon Open Space to 700 acres, and creates the first public access from N.M. 14, the Turquoise Trail.

The property offers hikers and equestrians impressive views from its high ground, and includes oak filled side canyons. Residential development was a very real threat in this scenic part of Cedar Springs, but decisive action from community activists and local and state government ensured its conservation as open space.

New Mexico: The Trust for Public Land