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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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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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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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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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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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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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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A SILVERY FLASH in the narrow Whitewater Creek pool meant that I was close. But the shadowy fish disappeared along the rocky canyon wall just as quickly. The tight quarters under the Catwalk National…
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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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“SOME PEOPLE WANT to just go catch a fish,” says Kirk Patten, chief of fisheries for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. “Others will fly all the way across the country to fish for a native…
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