South Central New Mexico

The resurrection of the Mescalero Tribal Fish Hatchery is closely tied to the fortitude of the tribe’s youth who literally saved it from drowning. The hatchery lies at the confluence of several streams and a spring that runs nearby. What makes its location ideal for the supply of water has wrecked havoc over the years as floods following fires have sent water cascading down the canyon onto the facility in 1999 and 2001. “The 2001 flood resulted in 100 percent…

Read More Read More

It is alarming to drive past areas where the forest is being treated and see scraped off and bare earth. According to Kim Kuhar of the Forest Service who has been on a monitoring team, the land is remarkably resilient, even when subjected to dozer or mastication treatments. In this month’s Forest Health talk at ENMU-Ruidoso, Kuhar revealed the findings of a study on using heavy equipment to restore grasslands that included the work of Dan Ray, Nicole Delorenzo, Mike…

Read More Read More

During the last week of June, 11 researchers set up camp high on the Lincoln National Forest just inside the Ski Apache boundary hoping to find the Peñasco least chipmunk. The last recorded capture was in 2000 on nearby Buck Mountain. A cousin of the more prevalent gray-footed chipmunk, found at lower elevations including Ruidoso, the Peñasco least chipmunk was well documented in surveys dating back to 1902 in the James Canyon area of the Sacramento District (near Cloudcroft, NM),…

Read More Read More