New Mexico
The future of New Mexico’s beloved bosque – High Country News
Old rope swings hang from even older cottonwoods along the Middle Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The riverside forest, known as the bosque, has long been a shady oasis in the arid valley. “It’s where everyone would go,” said Shelby Bazan, who describes herself as a “born and raised Burqueña,” or native of Albuquerque. Her father grew up along the river in the ’70s, and both her parents remember summers when the river was alive with water and people.
Myron Armijo, the governor of Santa Ana Pueblo, shares those memories. “The Rio Grande was our playground,” he said. “Once we got our chores done, then we would get out there and play, a lot of the time pretty much all day long.” Now, water diversions, development and climate change leave more sections of the river dry each year. “If you jump, you’re just going to hit the dirt,” said Bazan. Nobody has bothered to replace the old swings.
Over the past two decades, restoration efforts large and small have removed introduced plants such as tamarisk and Russian olive, which can form impenetrable thickets, replacing them with native cottonwoods, willows and shrubs that support wildlife and are significant to the people with the deepest roots in the valley. “It means a lot to us, both traditionally, culturally,” Armijo said of the bosque.
But as the region warms — average temperatures since 2000 have been 1.8 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they were over the previous century — and the once-high water table drops, those who love the bosque have been forced to reconsider what can be realistically restored.
“The Rio Grande was our playground. Once we got our chores done, then we would get out there and play, a lot of the time pretty much all day long.”
OVER MILLENNIA, the bosque’s mosaic of plant communities was maintained by a high water table, seasonal flooding and a meandering river channel. “You’d have grassy meadows, wetlands and understory shrubs over here; young cottonwoods over there; older cottonwoods over here,” said ecologist Kim Eichhorst, director of the community-science-based Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP).
By the 1990s, 150 years of water- and land-use decisions had destroyed or degraded much of this historic mosaic. “Channelization, levees to protect communities, impoundments to store water for irrigation purposes — that all changed the river,” said Glenn Harper, who’s worked for Santa Ana Pueblo for over 25 years and oversees its 142,000 acres of grassland, shrubland and woodland habitat.
Cottonwoods that germinated in the 1930s and 1940s are now separated from the river and nearing the end of their lifespan. Without the seasonal floods that distributed seeds and nutrient-rich sediment, there are few young cottonwoods to replace them. At the same time, drier, hotter conditions have encouraged introduced plants, not only tamarisk and Russian olive but Siberian elm, Ravenna grass and many others.
In response, many Middle Rio Grande communities — at Santa Ana and Sandia pueblos, in Albuquerque and elsewhere — began restoration efforts along the river to bring back the bosque. Though much of the initial work was spearheaded and funded by local communities, many of the projects now have government agency support. For example, Albuquerque’s industrialized South Valley is now home to Valle del Oro National Wildlife Refuge, thanks to a collaboration between the local community and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Though bosque restoration isn’t the refuge’s sole purpose, it is a part of its plans for the land.
When Santa Ana Pueblo embarked on its ambitious bosque restoration plan, said Armijo, the tamarisk and Russian olive thickets under the mature cottonwoods were so dense that getting through them on horseback was impossible. After the pueblo’s Bosque Restoration Division cleared about 1,500 acres, the bosque began to resemble the open cottonwood forest that pueblo elders remembered from their youth.
Since then, though, falling groundwater levels have stressed the aging cottonwoods, and many are dying or dead. “Climate change,” said Nathan Schroeder, Santa Ana Pueblo’s Restoration Division manager. “That’s where I feel like the deck keeps getting shuffled.” And because the roots of young trees can no longer reach the water table, the pueblo’s original plan for planting new cottonwoods among the old is no longer tenable.
AS CONVENTIONAL restoration approaches become less reliable, advocates are asking how to move forward. “What we really need is to recognize what the system can support,” said Eichhorst. Instead of trying to restore the bosque to what it was, she envisions a mix of dryland plants and smaller pockets of “wet-loving” plants, cottonwoods or otherwise, wherever water is sufficient.
At the pueblo, the Restoration Division may plant some native drought-tolerant shrubs where it had planned to grow cottonwoods. Farther downstream in Albuquerque, said geographer and herbalist Dara Saville, some of these species are showing up on their own: “Now that the bosque is largely dry … you see the creeping in of plants from the mesa, from the foothills, from these higher, drier areas.”
Saville, the founder of the nonprofit Yerba Mansa Project (YMP), doesn’t mind shrubs. “They’re key components of my concept of restoration, resiliency and ongoingness.” The bosque will continue, she said, but as it changes to adapt to new conditions, tenacious, shrubby plant species will likely become more common. And while shrubs can’t provide a shady refuge for people, they do offer food and shelter to wildlife, and some are sources of traditional foods and medicines. Along the Middle Rio Grande, project staff and volunteers have planted native species, such as yerba mansa, pale wolfberry, golden currant and willow baccharis, all of which have medicinal uses.
Bazan, who works as a BEMP educator, said nonnative trees are another option: “If we don’t have the cottonwoods, would you rather have an exotic bosque that has Siberian elm that still provides shade — or would you rather have a native bosque, but of shrubs and dry grassland areas?” Though Siberian elms are classified as “noxious weeds” in New Mexico, their tolerance for a lower water table and their ability to provide habitat for local species such as porcupine have led restorationists to consider leaving them in place in some areas.
“Now that the bosque is largely dry … you see the creeping in of plants from the mesa, from the foothills, from these higher, drier areas.”
While the restoration projects are ecologically and culturally important, there are many competing uses for the Rio Grande’s water, including irrigation and the demands of an expanding urban population. Although riverside vegetation also uses river water, a new bosque mosaic is expected to use less water than extensive thickets of nonnative trees and shrubs.
In the pueblo, however, the focus remains on native plants and wildlife. To support young cottonwoods and willows, the restoration division, in partnership with federal agencies, used excavators to lower sections of the riverbank and bring back some limited flooding. The bosque planted in this new floodplain over the past 15-plus years is luring endangered southwestern willow flycatchers, threatened western yellow-billed cuckoos and, according to this year’s survey, yellow warblers, Harper said.
No matter its makeup, restoring and maintaining a more resilient bosque ecosystem will require cooperation and long-term maintenance. “It never ends,” said Harper. Eichhorst is encouraged by the region’s shared love of the bosque. “It isn’t something that’s just an older generation, but it’s something that younger students are actively participating in,” she said. “It’s not hopeless.”
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This article appeared in the November 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “A riverside oasis heats up.”
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The McCauley Springs Fire in the Jemez Ranger District, east of Battleship Rock, is 100% contained at 712 acres.
The fire was reported on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. The Northern New Mexico Zone Type 3 Incident Management Team (IMT), led by Incident Commander Luke McLarty, initially managed the fire before the Southwest Area Incident Management Team 3, under Incident Commander Matt Rau, took over. From June 26 to July 4, this team handled operations, after which command returned to the Jemez Ranger District. Under a Type 4 organization, firefighters worked to cool remaining hot spots and secure firelines, reaching full containment on July 13.
Although the fire is fully contained, visitors should remain aware that burned areas can present hazards. When visiting fire-affected areas, watch for changing conditions, hazard trees, unstable terrain, and other post-fire hazards. Suppression repair work may continue in some locations, and the public is asked to use caution around personnel and equipment and provide crews with plenty of space to work.
A temporary closure order for the burned area remains in place through August 11, 2026. The full order and map can be found on the Santa Fe National Forest website under Alerts. Battleship Rock, Jemez Falls Campground and Group Area, the Jemez Falls Trailhead, San Diego Overlook, and the East Fork Trail from Battleship Rock to Highway 4 will remain closed until further notice for public safety.
A multi-disciplinary Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) team evaluated the burned area to identify risks to human life, property, and critical resources. Over 80% of the fire was mapped as low soil burn severity, meaning most tree canopies and ground cover remain intact, reducing the risk of erosion and runoff. About 12% of the area showed moderate burn severity, with patchy ground cover loss and some water-repellent soils. Less than 1% was classified as high burn severity, where vegetation and soil were heavily impacted. The full summary can be found on the Santa Fe National Forest website.
For Santa Fe National Forest news and updates visit our website and social media pages (Facebook and X).
About the Forest Service: The Forest Service has brought people and communities together to answer the call of conservation for more than 100 years. Grounded in world-class science and technology — and rooted in communities — the Forest Service connects people to nature and recreation opportunities. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, supports the nation’s forest industry and energy needs, and operates the largest and most respected wildland fire and forestry research organizations in the world. By providing assistance to state and private landowners and working with tribes and other partners, the Forest Service also helps steward an additional 900 million forested acres within the U.S.
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NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Some call the multi-million-dollar El Camino Real Heritage Center an architectural masterpiece. Others, however, call it one of New Mexico’s most expensive blunders. In 2021, former Speaker of the House Don Tripp weighed in on the project, “As far as benefit, it really didn’t have any benefit to anybody.”
Taxpayers paid more than $4,000,000 to build it, a few million dollars more to operate it and, now, a half million to tear it down.
The El Camino Real Heritage Center is a history museum dedicated to the historic ‘Royal Road of the Interior’. Established by Spanish conquistadores in 1598, the historic byway extended from Mexico City to north of Santa Fe. Armed with $4,000,000 from the state legislature and the Bureau of Land Management, consultants were hired to find the best place to build the new museum. After studying various locations, they chose a remote spot on the prairie 37 miles south of Socorro.
The experts said, ‘build halfway between Socorro and Truth or Consequences,’ and the museum will draw 100,000 visitors a year, bring in $10,000,000 to the region, and create 174 new jobs. Back in 2004, no one raised a red flag about putting a tourist attraction in an out-of-the-way location. It was only after construction was complete that officials learned the so-called experts were dead wrong. The project was doomed to fail before it even opened its doors. “Who the heck thought it was a good idea to build it where they built it?” State Rep. Gail Armstrong told KRQE News 13 last year.
The state’s newest museum opened in 2005. An estimated crowd of 2000 turned out for the dedication ceremony. Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was there. “We had Bill Richardson out there cutting the ribbon, and then we had the Vice President of Spain come down here with his beautiful wife, and we had dignitaries everywhere. It was exciting,” Mayor Bhasker said.
But the excitement was short-lived. Where the historic El Camino Real trail was in use for three centuries, the museum with its namesake lasted just eleven years. The remote location meant few visitors, meager revenue, inadequate staffing, expensive utilities, and maintenance.
In 2016, New Mexico’s Cultural Affairs Department pulled the plug on the El Camino Real Heritage Center, padlocked the doors, and permanently closed the museum. The parking lot is deserted, tourists are gone, artifacts are packed away, display cases vacant, exhibits dismantled, interpretive panels removed, and the gift shop is bare. All there is to show for millions of tax dollars is an abandoned building on the prairie.
“Eleven years is disgraceful. There was a real failure in this particular project,” the late State Senator John Arthur Smith said in a 2021 interview. We asked the retired Senate Finance Committee Chair, when the history of this project is written, what will it say? “They’re going to shake their head and (use this as) another example of government waste,” the retired Senator Smith said in 2021.
So what do you do with a $4,000,000 deserted building in the middle of nowhere? Time and vandals have taken a toll. The museum was closed and boarded up in 2016, and then state officials abandoned the site. Because little effort was made to secure the empty building, it is no longer habitable. Copper wiring has been stolen. There is significant structural damage, mold, a rodent infestation, and no electricity or lights. Most of the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, water, and septic systems are either obsolete or inoperable.
Faced with a whopping $3.5 million repair bill, the Museum of New Mexico’s Board of Regents made the difficult decision last year to demolish the building. Board of Regent’s President, Dr. George Goldstein, calls the building, “A loss, a huge loss.”
“What a complete waste of taxpayer dollars,” says State Rep. Gail Armstrong who’s District 49 includes the museum site. And what did taxpayers get for their $4,000,000 investment? “Nothing. It just cost them a ton of money. Nothing,” Representative Armstrong said.
This week, a state-hired demolition crew began the task of tearing down the museum complex. Tons of concrete, steel, and glass will be hauled away. The parking lot and nearby caretaker’s house will also be ripped out. The prairie will be graded, reseeded with native plants, and returned to the Bureau of Land Management in restored, pristine condition. The demolition project is expected to take four months.
The El Camino Real museum was planned and built during the Governor Bill Richardson administration. All of the State Legislators involved in the funding of the museum project have since left government service.
Soon, the El Camino Real International Heritage Center will be just a bitter memory. All clues to the existence of a pricey government blunder will have been erased. Pay a visit to the remote spot south of Socorro later this fall, and all you will find will be desert creosote, prairie dogs, and a few rattlesnakes.
CLOVIS, New Mexico (KVII) — A baby giraffe was born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis.
The city announced a male calf was born around 1 a.m. Thursday to Jerrica, a Rothschild giraffe who has lived at the zoo since she was born there in January 2012.
Zoo officials said Jerrica, a first-time mother, and her calf are doing well.
Baby giraffe born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis, New Mexico on July 9, 2026 (Credit: Hillcrest Park Zoo )
The calf will make his public debut from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment you won’t want to miss! Bring your family, your camera, and your excitement as we welcome the zoo’s newest (and tallest!) superstar!” said the zoo.
Because the calf is male, he will eventually be moved from Hillcrest Park Zoo to another zoo or facility, according to the city.
The zoo plans to ask the public to help name the calf in the coming weeks.
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