News

For more than 120 years, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has worked tirelessly to manage our state’s diverse wildlife. Our work with game species—any animals that are hunted, fished or trapped—always attracts the (mountain) lion’s share of attention. But managing game species is just one aspect of our goal to conserve New Mexico’s wildlife for future generations. Our work with New Mexico’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN for short)—non-game animals that play a vital role in our biodiversity but are struggling to survive—is another aspect of our mission that deserves more attention. This issue is devoted to our intrepid efforts as we work towards Saving Our Species through nearly 80 ongoing projects dedicated to our SGCN. In addition to behind-the-scenes field reports in New Mexico Wildlife, keep an eye out for information on our SGCN conservation efforts on social media by searching for #SaveOurSpecies. You [...]

The following is just a taste of our work with invertebrate SGCN. Invertebrates are creatures that lack (“in-”) backbones (“vertebra”). The Texas hornshell is one of the few river mussels that are native to New Mexico. Although “spineless,” this mussel has proven robust in its fight to survive. Read on to discover the important part it plays in our biodiversity! * It’s a gray, crisp morning in Southern New Mexico. The back of a wetsuit and goggles hover over the muddy bed of the Black River. The back turns into a young man when he splashes to the surface and sucks in the breeze. Smiling, he raises a shining treasure for all to see. This isn’t a typical treasure hunter: Nathan Thompson is one of our Aquatic Biologists. And he doesn’t hunt typical treasure: rather than specks of silver or an arrowhead, he grasps a hinged set of black-ridged [...]

Erin Duvuvuei has managed a lot during her conservation career. She’s our non-game avian biologist who recently participated in a comprehensive survey of yellow-billed cuckoos in 11 western states. Erin’s encounter during a recent survey allowed her to experience the threats that can be faced by this bird first hand.  The yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) is a member of the cuckoo family (Cuculidae). It’s native to wide swaths of the Americas running from southern Canada to the Caribbean. Sometimes it even migrates as far south as northern Argentina. The “western” yellow-billed cuckoo is federally threatened across its range. Habitat loss—including riparian destruction and invasion of non-native trees in our riparian area—is one of the major threats to the cuckoo’s existence in the West. Because of these losses, the US Fish and Wildlife Service identified only 500,000 acres of critical habitat across the West available to this population segment. Recently, [...]

The DGF is collaborating with American Southwest Ichthyological Researchers to try something new in the San Juan River. Through technology, we’ve developed Passive Integrated Transponder tag antennas (PIT tags for short). A PIT tag is a small device that uses radio frequencies to communicate a unique code from an antenna when paired with a reader, similar to the way microchips are used to keep track of our dogs and cats. These PIT tags are being tested in their field debut for the detection and study of our SGCN. Which is the first species that will be studied with PIT tags? That would be the razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus), a member of the suckerfish family (Catostomidae). It’s a critically endangered species native to the southwest and (formerly) Mexico. Efforts to preserve the razorback sucker have been led by the San Juan River Basin Recovery and Implementation Program (SJRIP for short). These [...]

The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis), a member of the weasel family (Mustelidae), is a semiaquatic mammal endemic to the North American continent. Originally native to New Mexico’s Gila River, the Rio Grande and the Canadian River, this species has been sadly absent from the Southwest since the 1950s. Deforestation, pollution and unregulated trapping all contributed to their disappearance—until now! Thanks to concerted conservation efforts, river otters have been returning to their native habitat in northern New Mexico for more than a decade. Our conservation experts, including Carnivore and Small Mammal Program Manager Nick Forman and Non-Game Mammal Specialist Jim Stuart, are monitoring otter populations and documenting the success of recovery efforts. Since 2008, river otters have become an increasingly common sight in the upper Rio Grande, from Cochiti Lake up to the Colorado border. Most of these otters were reintroduced from Washington state, but nine additional otters [...]