Hunting the Crown Prince of the Plains
ON MY THIRD and last day of hunting for pronghorn on the plains of northeastern New Mexico, I press five 168-grain cartridges into the magazine, click it into the action, and sling the .308 Mauser…
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Category: Nature & Wildlife
Meet the Pack at Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary
ABOUT 15 MINUTES into a walk around North America’s largest canid sanctuary, the wolves and wolfdogs begin a low, collective singing. The pack howl thrums with wildness, churning out hypnotic minor…
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Lizard Love in New Mexico
AS A BOY, Tom McCain could hop over the backyard wall of his home near Eubank and Menaul boulevards to explore what was then Albuquerque’s northeastern frontier. He looked for horned lizards and…
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Where Wildlife Finds Refuge
BITTER LAKE, ROSWELL Where the Chihuahuan Desert meets the high plains and Pecos River, a surprising oasis teems with life. Across 25,000 ecologically diverse acres, Bitter Lake draws 357 migratory…
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Safe Passage for New Mexico’s Wildlife
IN JULY 2020, Squeaks left Santa Ana Pueblo. Fitted with a GPS tracking collar by the pueblo’s Department of Natural Resources, the subadult male mountain lion made an extraordinary 558-mile journey…
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Bringing Wetlands Back to Life
MOLLIE WALTON KNOWS what the plants underfoot suggest. But just to be sure, the restoration ecologist steps out onto a green patch and bounces, a little like testing a trampoline. “Isn’t that…
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Visit These Wildlife Rescue Centers
NEW MEXICO WILDLIFE CENTER, ESPAÑOLA Off a rural road in Española, the wildlife center’s hospital helps more than 1,000 animals every year. A newborn bobcat kitten, for example, was found on Mother’s…
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Guide to New Mexico's Wildlife
1. Elk “At the turn of the century, there were no elk in New Mexico,” says Garrett VeneKlasen, northern conservation director for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. “Their comeback has been an…
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Where the Wild Things Are
IT’S NOT EASY to pick a beginning for New Mexico’s wildlife story. Some 23,000 years before White Sands became a national park, footprints left in mud by a young woman carrying a child on her hip…
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Wildfires Transform Valles Caldera
NOT FAR BEHIND the ranger station, the forest ends. Sunlight floods over grasses, wildflowers, and burnt trunks still standing after the most recent wildfire. The 2013 Thompson Ridge Fire charred the…
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