New Mexico
New Mexico’s Beloved Pinyon Jay Is Losing Its Pine Habitat
![New Mexico’s Beloved Pinyon Jay Is Losing Its Pine Habitat](https://media.wired.com/photos/636567cef4db157fcdf20f75/191:100/w_1280,c_limit/Climatedesk-pinyonjay_science_GettyImages-184677517.jpg)
The petition accommodates the primary estimate of complete acreage of piñon-juniper habitat at present handled by the Bureau of Land Administration and the US Forest Service in states with pinyon jay populations. The estimate “suggests intensive lack of appropriate pinyon jay habitat on federal lands,” with over 440,000 acres impacted, based on the petition.
Chook mentioned that’s why itemizing the pinyon jay as endangered is vital: “It could require them to take a extremely arduous have a look at what the impacts are to the fowl” and seek the advice of with the Fish and Wildlife Service earlier than finishing up therapies in pinyon jay habitat. Johnson agreed, saying that itemizing the pinyon jay as endangered would have a “large affect” as a result of businesses could be required to change their administration plans.
All through historical past, Indigenous peoples throughout the West have foraged for piñon nuts and relied on them as a vital meals provide in the course of the winter and lean years. When the Spanish arrived within the Southwest within the 1500s, in addition they started gathering the oily, protein-rich seeds. The lengthy custom of households harvesting piñon nuts continues in lots of communities at the moment. But threats to piñon forests endanger these cultural practices.
“I’ve been selecting piñon since I may stroll,” mentioned Raymond Sisneros, a retired horticulture instructor who farms exterior the city of Cuba and traces his household line to the primary Spanish settlers.
If the pines close to their house weren’t producing, his household would drive to a different website. His grandfather taught him how one can harvest the nuts, and he offered them door-to-door within the close by city. Piñon wasn’t a deal with, he mentioned, however a “lifestyle,” a supply of each meals and income. Now it’s uncommon to seek out New Mexico piñon on the market.
The final time Sisneros had a giant crop close to his house was 4 years in the past, and relations traveled from as distant as Tennessee and California to assemble piñon. However these traditions could also be coming to an finish. “I’m scared as a result of our piñon forest goes,” he mentioned. The massive bushes that when produced over 100 kilos of piñon nuts are dying due to drought, he mentioned.
Val Panteah, governor of Zuni Pueblo in northwestern New Mexico, mentioned many tribal members collect piñon within the late fall. He remembers harvesting piñons together with his household as a teen, climbing into bushes and shaking the branches so the nuts would fall onto a bedsheet on the bottom.
Panteah has noticed adjustments in piñon crops over time. “After I was actually younger, it appeared prefer it was yearly” or each different 12 months for a giant piñon crop, he mentioned, “however now, it looks like each 4 years.”
The jays might supply the very best hope of resilience for piñon-juniper forests. They’re “the one species that’s able to transferring a woodland uphill if there’s been a hearth,” Johnson says, “or replanting an space that’s been burned or decimated by bugs or drought” by ferrying seeds away from the degraded space.
But these species’ intimate interconnection additionally results in what Johnson calls a vicious cycle. If the fowl is misplaced, the woodlands can’t be replanted.
If the woodland isn’t replanted, the fowl populations decline.
For the tree, for the fowl, and for the individuals, she mentioned, “it could simply be tragic for us to lose these woodlands.”
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New Mexico
Fires drive more wildlife into Ruidoso
![Fires drive more wildlife into Ruidoso](https://www.kob.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Fires-drive-more-wildlife-into-Ruidoso.jpg)
While these wildfires keep burning, the people in the community can expect to see wildlife in more common areas.
While the South Fork and Salt wildfires keep burning, it’s not just structures and houses that were lost in the Village of Ruidoso, but the homes of wildlife in the area.
It’s not uncommon to see elk, wild horses, or even a bear in Ruidoso. As wildfires ripped through the area, some were concerned about these animals. But experts say they should be adapted to wildfires.
“Animals in New Mexico have been adapted to deal with wildfires as part of their natural dynamic. Our plant-animal communities are pretty resilient to fire,” said Melissa Garnett, a spokesperson with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
Garnett says residents should expect to see more animals.
“In times of fire like this, those ranges can be temporarily, changed. so we’re seeing more animals in town.”
Residents in the area told me they had seen an increase in wildlife.
Garnett says as wildlife moves to new areas, they’re using the roadways and warns people to be extra careful. “There’s also been some reports, wildlife-vehicle collisions that have come in. People need to use extra caution when they are driving”
She says there is no telling how many animals are displaced, but says it’s going to take some time.
“It’s still very early. there’s, it’s going to take some time to get the full environmental impact of this fire. and our conservation experts will assess the impact of this fire and any post-fire recovery that is needed. But not until after the fire has been fully extinguished,” said Garnett.
If you see an injured animal, contact the New Mexico Game and Fish Information Center.
New Mexico
NMSP: Otero County deputy shoots and kills teen with gun
![NMSP: Otero County deputy shoots and kills teen with gun](https://www.kob.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NEW-MEXICO-STATE-POLICE-C0-C0-C0-1024x576-1.webp)
OTERO COUNTY, N.M. — New Mexico State Police say an Otero County deputy shot and killed a teenager who pointed what appeared to be a firearm at the deputy.
The deputy received a call around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday about a man in the median of U.S. Highway 70, near mile marker 240.
When the deputy arrived and approached the man, the man presented “what appeared to be a firearm” at the deputy. The deputy then shot him at least once.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene. He was identified as 17-year-old Elijah Hadley. NMSP investigators say the object he had was an airsoft gun. The deputy did not sustain any injuries.
An investigation is ongoing.
New Mexico
NM governor shares draft proposal for forced mental health treatment • Source New Mexico
![NM governor shares draft proposal for forced mental health treatment • Source New Mexico](https://sourcenm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/20240626_192201-scaled.jpg)
More details are emerging about the changes to state law being proposed by New Mexico’s governor for a special legislative session planned in July.
Two high-ranking members of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s staff discussed five legislative proposals with a panel of lawmakers from the House of Representative and the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.
“What the governor is looking to do with the bills I’m going to discuss, first, is to really take some small, necessary steps to really help those people who are either an extreme danger to themselves, or an extreme danger to others,” the governor’s general counsel Holly Agajanian said.
Agajanian and Benjamin Baker, the governor’s senior public safety advisor, presented the discussion drafts to the legislative Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee.
The final proposals could significantly change between now and when the special session begins on July 18 in Santa Fe.
One of the proposals would require judges to advise a local district attorney in New Mexico to consider starting the process of involuntary commitment in a locked mental health facility.
Under the nine-page draft shared with the committee, the court could confine someone for up to a week whenever they determine that person is not competent to participate in their own legal defense, they aren’t dangerous, and the judge dismisses the criminal case.
The draft also proposes that if any of the criminal charges are a serious violent offense, or involve a gun, or if the defendant has been found incompetent to stand trial at least twice in the past year, a judge could put that person into a locked mental health facility for up to a week.
Agajanian said the draft bill is trying to solve the problem of cases getting dismissed due to defendants being incompetent to stand trial.
“You have certain people who cycle through, and through, and through, who are very likely either going to get worse and harm themselves in one way or another, or harm someone else,” she said.
The proposed changes to the state law are meant to allow for the assessment of those people “to see whether or not they do need to be committed for separate mental health treatment,” she said.
“Because obviously there is something going on, and the crimes they’re committing aren’t violent enough or dangerous enough to keep them in a facility until they can establish competency,” Agajanian said.
Another related proposal would change the legal definitions of “harm to self” and “harm to others” in the state law that governs commitment in a locked mental health facility.
Sen. Katy Duhigg (D-Albuquerque) said she read the proposed definitions and thought, “Boy, this would apply to half the legislators I know.”
“This is really, really broad language,” she said. “It’s going to sweep up so many people who I don’t think it would be appropriate for them to get swept up in this.”
Duhigg asked about the meaning of the term “extreme destruction of property” used in the draft, and pointed out it doesn’t specify property of others.
Agajanian said “that’s a great distinction that we could certainly add.”
“Historically, this language is meant to pull in people like arsonists,” Agajanian said. “You could set your own house on fire. Narrowing it to the destruction of property of another might fix one problem and cause another, but I’m certainly open to conversation about that.”
Winter Torres, CEO and founder of the New Mexico Eviction Prevention and Diversion Program, attended most of Wednesday’s hearing in person and gave public comment at the end of the day.
“I don’t think this session is about public safety, I think it’s about criminalizing homelessness,” Torres said. “That is the primary target of the majority of the bills that are introduced.”
There hasn’t been community interaction or public consultation about that, Torres said.
“We know the answer to folks who churn: it’s permanent supportive housing,” she said. “We know what the evidence is: we know criminalizing doesn’t work.”
Instead, state officials should be using Medicaid funding to pay for housing, she said.
“Housing is a primary social determinant of health, and locking folks up is not a treatment modality,” she said.
Peter Cubra, a retired attorney who helped dismantle the state-run institutions that held people with developmental disabilities in New Mexico, also gave public comment via Zoom. He asked the committee to “please slow this down.”
“What I heard today, in terms of changing the entire civil commitment statute, is more controversial and more impactful than things we have spent literally eight sessions trying to sort out with respect to forced treatment,” Cubra said. “It really would disserve every person with a disability in New Mexico for you to act, under these circumstances, so swiftly.”
In addition to harming people with disabilities who aren’t eagerly seeking treatment, if lawmakers were to enact the administration’s proposal, “there are hundreds of people begging for treatment who would not have access to the beds that they’re begging to get into.”
“Instead, we would be holding people against their will in a form of involuntary treatment which is almost never effective,” Cubra said. “Please slow this down and let the regular session address these issues.”
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