Conservation
Per Mike Sloane (NMDG&F Chief of Fisheries), work has begun on the two back channels downstream of the Texa-hole. The effort includes cleaning out the organic sediments, creating some pools, shaping the channel and building some rock and tree structures. The plan is to create more habitat and improve sediment transport. Along with this project a waterfowl/wetland area will be built between the Texas-hole and the Munoz parking lot ... Read More
Ron Loehman Conservation Chairman Plan to join other NM Trout Volunteers on June 1st to build structures that will help the Rio Cebolla recover from the effects of unauthorized vehicles along its banks. The location is about 4 miles north of Porter's Landing where FR 376 crosses the Cebolla, across the valley from where we installed the interpretive panels last year. We will be working to close off an informal road along the creek that was decommissioned in the recent Forest Service travel management plan. This is an action that NM Trout has been advocating for over a decade and ... Read More
Rio Guadalupe Cleanup - Saturday, April 20, 2013 New Mexico Trout has a tradition of welcoming the Spring opening of FR 376 between the Gilman Tunnels and Porter's Landing with a volunteer trash pickup. That Forest Service road provides access to our Rio Guadalupe home water and it accumulates a lot of roadside trash over a season's heavy use by the many people who visit that corridor. Doing these annual cleanups is one way we can express our thanks for the wonderful trout fishing opportunities the Rio Guadalupe affords while we help maintain it in a state that we like ... Read More
Ron Loehman, Conservation Chairman In July 2010, a collaboration of the Santa Fe National Forest and the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and several Pueblo tribes was awarded a ten-year $40 million Federal project to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire in the Southwest Jemez. The objective is to restore many of the characteristics the forest enjoyed before centuries of overgrazing, logging, and fire suppression produced the landscape we see today of smaller, closely spaced trees that are susceptible to massive crown fires. After a lot of study, formal environmental assessments, and many public hearings, the collaboration has released its Proposed ... Read More
by Ron Loehman, Conservation Chair Over the past several years I have been watching the progress of an example of natural riparian restoration on the lower Rio Guadalupe. The section in question is below the Gilman Tunnels and is characterized by a downcut stream channel with just a narrow band of willows along the banks that can provide shade to lower water temperature. Due to the downcutting, the area along the stream that was once flood plain now contains only upland plants such as Apache Plume, drought tolerant grasses, juniper, and Siberian elm. In spite of the apparently poor habitat ... Read More
Annual Comanche Creek Workshop Sponsored by the Quivira Coalition Friday August 10 -- Sunday August 12 Valle Vidal Unit of the Carson National Forest This year we will be working to restore a wet meadow on the upper reach of Grassy Creek, a tributary of Comanche Creek. We hope you can join Quivira Staff and our project restoration specialists Steve Carson and Craig Sponholtz for a summer weekend learning wet meadow monitoring and new restoration techniques that help restore health to degraded lands! The Comanche Creek watershed, situated in the Valle Vidal Unit of the Carson National Forest, was historically ... Read More
Help Rescue Brown Trout on the Upper Rio Cebolla What, Where, and Why: On August 7th staff from the US Forest Service and the NM Department of Game and Fish will shock the upper Rio Cebolla to remove brown trout that have gotten into a part of the stream that is designated for native Rio Grande Cutthroat trout. The brown trout outcompete the RG cutthroats and threaten the survival of a native trout population. The last time the stream was shocked, over 600 browns were removed from a one-mile stretch of the Cebolla above McKinney Pond and "banked", or tossed ... Read More