| | |  Editorials | Environmental | July 2008 
Partnership Plans for Wildlife Corridor, Free-Roaming Paths
 Staci Matlock - The Santa Fe New Mexican
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| | Map of the wildlife corridor of the Wildlands Project. | | |
From spring through fall on Interstate 25 east of Santa Fe and U.S. 285 past Eldorado, there's a frequent, unwelcome wildlife sighting: road kill.
Deer, rabbits, bear and coyotes risk their lives when they try to leap, scamper, lumber and run across busy roads to reach water, new range or better forage.
A partnership made up of nonprofit groups, government agencies and landowners are working on a wildlife corridor to give animals safer passage across the Galisteo Basin.
Safe passage could mean culverts designed to direct larger animals under roads. Flashing signs could alert drivers as they approach known wildlife-crossing spots. Properly designed fencing around county, federal and private land would allow antelope to go under, and deer to go over, without injury. Developers could help by building houses away from streambeds and wetlands.
If it happens, the corridor will become part of a vast network of planned, protected wildlife routes running along mountain spines from Alaska to Mexico's Sierra Madres. The Galisteo Basin corridor would link the Sandia and Manzano mountains to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, said Jan-Willem Jansens, executive director of Earth Works Institute. "Very few people know that the Galisteo watershed is such an important wildlife linkage at a continental scale," Jansens said.
The institute is coordinating the effort and is part of the Galisteo Watershed Partnership, which was formed three years ago. The group is made up of individual landowners, Santa Fe County, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, environmentalists and others.
Passages are important for maintaining healthy wildlife, said Chuck Hayes, who manages the Biota Information System for the Department of Game and Fish. "We're trying to prevent small isolated populations, constrained by development and highways," Hayes said.
Isolated populations lead to inbreeding and are more vulnerable to drought and disease, he said. "Certainly in the face of climate change it is important for animals to be able to move from one habitat to another," Hayes said.
Mountain lions can potentially move hundreds of miles between territories, Hayes said. Deer and elk move up and down mountain ranges.
Housing development, roads, abandoned mines and fencing are all hazards for wildlife. As land is developed and human populations increase, it is tougher for wildlife to move around freely without some kind of protections.
Hayes said Western states governors met recently to discuss keeping wildlife migration corridors open in the face of increased oil and gas development.
David van Hulsteyn, a retired Los Alamos physicist now with Wild Prairie Partners, and Amy Tremper, who manages the Cerro Pelon Ranch, south of Galisteo with her husband, represent just two of the people involved with the Galisteo Watershed Partnership. Both are impressed with how the wildlife corridor is coming together.
"The partnership is well organized," van Hulsteyn said, noting the group has made a lot of effort to work with landowners large and small.
Tremper joined the partnership when it formed. "It's one of the best things we've worked on," she said.
The 24,000-acre Cerro Pelon Ranch, which straddles a portion of the Galisteo Creek, is a crucial part of the corridor. Tremper rides horses across the ranch and has seen sign of antelope, bobcats, badgers, burrowing owls, deer, mountain lions and many other species. The ranch's owner "has dedicated the ranch as part of the wildlife corridor and not in any way disturbing the wildlife movement through the ranch," she said.
Jansens said one of the first things the partnership needs to do now is track the movement of wildlife across the basin. The state Department of Game and Fish tracks some ear-tagged animals, and the Department of Transportation has statistics on where the most wild animals are killed by vehicles. But a lot more information is needed to understand the routes used by different species to travel across the basin, Jansens said.
Jansens said landowners and people visiting the area can help by calling or e-mailing Earth Works Institute when they spot wildlife. The institute will be offering tracking workshops and other wildlife workshops in the future as well.
People also can send infor-mation about wildlife they've spotted to Eliza@earthworks institute.org or call 982-9806.
Jansens said people who support the wildlife corridor can also help with donations. Earthworks and the partnership have a pledge drive under way to raise $10,000 by Sept. 30 to support the wildlife corridor project.
Contact Staci Matlock at smatlock(at)sfnewmexican.com. |
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