New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance
The New Mexico Heritage Preservation Alliance is a statewide, private non-profit organization that promotes, protects, and advocates for New Mexico’s heritage.
Category Archives: newmexico
Save La Bajada Mesa!
Mission Statement
The mission of Save La Bajada Mesa is to protect the cultural, environmental and economic resources of of Santa Fe County from the adverse impacts of strip mining La Bajada Mesa.NMHeritage.org: Resources: NM Preservation Resources
La Bajada Mesa and Escarpment, Santa FeSignificance: La Bajada represents a key landscape demarcation between what the Spanish colonial world termed the Rio Abajo and Rio Arriba regions of New Mexico–the lower and upper lands with their distinct ecologies and climates. It also represented the greatest single obstacle for movement across the land as signified by the many pathways that early travelers used to climb or descend the escarpment. These various paths stretch for miles along the escarpment eastward beyond the Cerrillos Hills to the Galisteo Basin and westward to the Canon Santa Fe. The wagon and, later, automobile roads passing near the village of La Bajada recall historic (and prehistoric) north and south movement. Early engravings and, later, postcards celebrated the escarpment and the challenges it posed to transportation. Many of these early images convey a sense of the grandeur of undisturbed open spaces, altered only by the engineering feats of modest roadways scaling the escarpment.
Threat: Mining and development could disturb the view shed of the entire escarpment. Any disturbances of the land (including cell towers) will diminish the capacity to appreciate the significance of the space. Retaining an undisturbed as possible view shed is essential to retaining a feeling for this important landscape and what it has meant historically for defining New Mexico’s southwestern character.
Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide
Hiking in the Sandia Mountains
by Mike ColtrinThis web site is a hiking guide to the Sandia Mountains. I give trail descriptions and advice on about 40 separate day hikes in the Sandia Mountains, covering more than 50 separate trails, and 250 miles. If you follow the rough outline shared here, all of the major (and many very seldom-traveled) trails can be covered within a year.
Explore New Mexico
A labor of love with hiking & camping info. peace, mjh
ABQNews – Another Top 10 for Albuquerque
peace, mjh
ABQNews – Another Top 10 for Albuquerque
Written by Dan McKay
Monday, 21 April 2008
Albuquerque’s Biological Park landed on the Top 10 list for best urban parks in the West, according to Sunset magazine.
Tingley Beach, the Rio Grande Zoo’s African exhibit and the Sasebo Japanese Garden are mentioned as reasons for the No. 8 ranking.
The magazine compiled a list of 10 great urban parks for its April edition. Topping the list is Balboa Park in San Diego.
Environmentalists want lynx protected in N.M.
Environmentalists want lynx protected in N.M.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Environmentalists and animal protection groups on Monday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
They’re trying to force the agency to extend Endangered Species Act protection to the Canada lynx in New Mexico.
The lawsuit says about 60 lynx have strayed into northern New Mexico since the Colorado Division of Wildlife began releasing the animals in Colorado in 1999.
The federal government lists the elusive cats as threatened in 14 states – but not New Mexico.
Last August, conservation groups petitioned for protection for the cats in New Mexico.
The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., complains that Fish and Wildlife failed to make a finding on the petition within 90 days as required by the Endangered Species Act.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Proposed Wilderness in New Mexico — NMWild
Some nice details in these pages. peace, mjh
Stop The Slaughter Of New Mexico Wildlife
Stop The Slaughter Of New Mexico Wildlife [Wilderness Alliance]
This past Tuesday, April 15, the Albuquerque Journal reported that a rancher in northwestern New Mexico killed 39 pronghorn antelope by shooting them with a shotgun because they were grazing in his "dormant" alfalfa field. Many of the pronghorn were maimed and did not die right away.
A 1997 law (known as the Jennings Law after its sponsor, State Senator Tim Jennings, D-Roswell) gives farmers and ranchers the right to kill wildlife that present an "immediate threat" to their crops. Rancher, Neal Trujillo, who is responsible for the killings, has complained that the State Game & Fish Department has failed to keep the pronghorn off his property, even though the state agency has offered to give Trujillo materials and some of the labor needed to reinforce his fencing.
In response to the public outcry on the killings, the Game & Fish Commission is inviting the public to comment on the law and will be holding three meetings in New Mexico.
1. May 29 in Farmington
2. July 24 in Las Vegas
3. August 21 in AlbuquerqueIn the meantime, Game & Fish took video of the shootings and posted it on the Albuquerque Journal website.
Watch The Video Here
(Warning: This Video Contains Graphic Images)Please call Senator Tim Jennings and voice your concern about the slaughter that occured on Neal Trujillo’s ranch. It is completely unacceptable for New Mexico’s wildlife to be maimed and left to suffer before they die, especially when the crops they were supposedly feeding on were dormant.
Senator Tim Jennings
(575) 623-8331Also call Tom Arvas, Chairman of the New Mexico Game & Fish Commission and urge him to do everything in his power to prevent any future incidences of New Mexico’s precious wildlife being slaughtered.
Chairman Tom Arvas
(505) 293-3515
Vacation Planning
Rabid Fox Found in Sierra County
Written by Bruce Daniels – ABQnewsSeeker
Thursday, 17 April 2008Dead animal found April 9 is the sixth confirmed case in southwestern N.M. this year.
A dead fox found in the Beaverhead area of the Gila National Forest about 50 miles northwest of Truth or Consequences has tested positive for rabies, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said in a news release.
The fox found April 9 was the first confirmed rabid fox in Sierra County and the sixth to be found in southwestern New Mexico so far this year, the release said.
This latest case was found at the far western edge of Sierra County near the top of a drainage to the Gila River, but so far no rabid animals have been found east of the Continental Divide, according to Game and Fish.
Fox rabies has been a problem for years in Arizona and has now spread into western New Mexico.
The first New Mexico case was confirmed in the southwestern part of the state last year, when nine foxes and one bobcat tested positive for rabies in Catron County.
Since then, it has spread into Grant County and now Sierra County, the department said.
Kerry Mower, a wildlife health specialist with Game and Fish, said the problem will likely continue in New Mexico in the coming years, but will eventually run its course.
The current fox population in southwestern New Mexico appears to be high, and cases of canine distemper also appear to be on the increase in the area, Mower said.
The key to controlling the spread of rabies, Mower said in the release, is to have a licensed veterinarian vaccinate all pets and livestock.
Residents also can protect themselves by keeping pet food indoors, putting trash out only on pickup days and removing bird feeders that may attract foxes and other animals to their property, the release said.
How Many Wolves Are There in NM?
ABQjournal NM: A Decade After Reintroduction of the Wolf, Environmentalists, Ranchers Continue to Play Tug of War Over Program By Rene Romo
Copyright © 2008 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Southern Bureau
The deep and often bitter divide between supporters and opponents of the wolf project is a big obstacle to its success, observers say.
"The conflict is real, and until we have either better federal leadership or better local leadership, the prospects for wolves are not going to improve greatly," said John Horning of Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, formerly Forest Guardians.
"And right now the prospects for wolf recovery are not great," Horning said.
"It’s kind of depressing to read all these comments that things are going to hell in a handbasket," said Laura Schneberger, head of the Gila Livestock Growers Association and a staunch opponent of the wolf reintroduction effort.
"It’s just not true," Schneberger said. "There are a lot of uncollared wolves out there."
I wonder if Schneberger has any proof for her claims. Does she have a theory for how the wolves are proliferating? I assume she explains the discrepancy between science and her opinion as simply out of touch extremists lying again. Elsewhere on this blog, she comments:
The difference between us and some of our counterparts is that we all have considerable and some of us, vast wildlife experience and we hope we are for the most part fairly patient with the extremism and bias directed at us from all sides of this issue.
I’m generally suspicious of people who feel besieged by inferiors. peace, mjh
Virtual Lobos: Forgetting Where Your Mascot Comes From
Student group says University should help Mexican gray wolf – News
by Bryan Gibel, Daily Lobo
The Mexican gray wolf is UNM’s namesake, but a student group said the University isn’t doing enough to protect its mascot.
The UNM Wilderness Alliance issued a resolution in September demanding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service improve its Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.
The resolution also urged University administration to issue “institutional policies and official resolutions” in support of Mexican gray wolves.
“UNM could be a major block of support for the Mexican gray wolf,” UNM Wilderness Alliance President Phil Carter said. “The University is way overdue in defending their mascot. This is their chance to do that.” …
The reintroduction program shouldn’t exist because it threatens the livelihood of ranchers in New Mexico, said Brian Phillips, a spokesman for Rep. Steve Pearce.
Pearce’s district covers most of the area where wolves are being reintroduced in southern and central New Mexico.
“They’ve killed and eaten horses down to the bone, and we’ve seen tracks running right up to people’s doors,” Phillips said. “There’s a girl who’s 11 or 12 years old that has to wear a gun on the ranch to protect herself from wolves.”
Pearce introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress last legislative session to end the wolf reintroduction program, but the bill did not pass.
Phillips said Pearce won’t let that failure stop him from trying to end the wolf reintroduction program. [mjh: Imagine Pearce as our Senator.] …
Carter said part of the problem is the federal government leases Forrest Service land to ranchers where the wolves are being reintroduced.
“This is intended as public land and thus is subject to the endangered species act,” he said. “The federal government is the landlord to these cattle ranchers, and they should revise land-use policies to minimize conflict between wolves and the livestock industry.”
Carter said wolves do not present a significant threat to ranchers in New Mexico. He said UNM and the Fish and Wildlife Service need to protect the species from extinction.
“UNM picked up this mascot in 1920 and just kind of slept while their mascot was eliminated form the country during the 20th century,” he said. “It would be a tragedy to let these animals be exterminated again, which is what is happening now.”
The Turquoise Traders
GEMLAND.NET » Blog Archive » The Turquoise Traders
The drive through New Mexico had been long and tedious, and though I was tired, I was also excited to reach my goal. Just a few more miles, I thought to myself, and I’ll be there. This was to be the first of several places I had wanted to visit that are now known to be intimately tied to the history of turquoise in the New World.
I was expecting the place I had been seeking to just jump out at me. But no, it turned out that it wasn’t that noticeable. Had I not been looking for it, I would have just driven on by, like the thousands of cars and trucks a day that zoom north and south between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, oblivious to the little group of small hills just east of the Interstate — another of those redundantly named places in the Southwest — the Cerrillos Hills. (Cerrillos means “little hillsâ€, in Spanish.)
Probably not one person in a thousand moving along that asphalt ribbon could have told you that in those barren looking hills is the oldest continuously mined site in North America. Like so many other places in our modern world where remnants of past greatness lie within reach of our everyday lives and yet go easily unnoticed and unconsidered, the Cerrillos Hills and their rich mines once shaped empires.
The Indians of the Southwest, the Aztecs of Mexico, and later the Spaniards, would all come to know of this place and the treasure it once offered – the mineral we call turquoise.
Walk Albuquerque
WALK Albuquerque is dedicated to creating and enhancing opportunities for walking in Albuquerque and surrounding communities. We are committed to transforming our region into a place where people of all ages and abilities can safely and easily walk to schools, parks, job sites, shopping opportunities, public transit stops, and other destinations.
http://walkalbuquerque.org/
Grappling with Fear
Following a link from “cred,” I ran across this article. Wolf supporters should read this and think about the situation. The reintroduction of the wolf will only succeed if everyone understands what it involves and we all do what we can to make it work for everyone reasonable.
I feel some compassion for people who are afraid of the wolf, especially anyone who has had a wolf march into their yard or kill a pet. At the same time, wolves will learn to avoid and fear people, as most wildlife does. It’s going to take time and some work, something ranchers are well-acquainted with. Times and conditions change and you adjust to those changes. mjh
Catron County Wolf pages – articles of interest
Under Siege in Wolf Country
The Mexican Gray Wolf: Killers and Thieves of Peace of Mind
copyright 2006 Lif C Strand
http://www.catroncounty.net/wolfhotline/articles/index.htm
[mjh: Arizona Game and Fish has an interesting page on the Mexican gray wolf, with photos.]
Mexican Wolf Conservation and Management
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/wolf_reintroduction.shtml