New Mexico National Wildlife Refuges Celebrated
In October,
, in partnership with the Friends of Valle de Oro and several National Wildlife Refuges in New Mexico, helped plan a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act.
Passed in 1997, the Improvement Act created an overarching mission for the National Wildlife Refuge System that previously did not exist. The Improvement Act ensured that management throughout the Refuge System would prioritize wildlife conservation and wildlife dependent recreation such us wildlife watching, photography, fishing and hunting. This made it easier for wildlife managers to resist development projects that could fragment habitat and make it more difficult for wildlife to prosper on these lands.
In New Mexico, the Improvement Act has been essential in protecting our nine national refuges that span the state from Maxwell NWR near the Colorado border to the state’s oldest refuge, Bitter Lake, located in the Permian Basin, which is one of the most active natural gas plays in the country.
The two-day event began with a press conference at Valle de Oro NWR — New Mexico’s newest National Wildlife Refuge — with speeches from local congressional offices as well as managers from Sevilleta, Bitter Lake, Las Vegas and Valle de Oro. Each manager spoke to how the Improvement Act has helped them manage their refuge to prioritize wildlife conservation and at the end of the press event, we released roughly 30 monarch butterflies, a declining species that will become increasingly dependent on Refuges and other protected areas.
Following the press event, visitors toured the refuge, a recently retired dairy farm that will be restored over the coming decade, with staff. In the afternoon, the group headed south to Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge where the refuge manager showed off some of the improvements, including a habitat project Defenders collaborated on last spring that will see more than 20,000 willows planted over the coming years to provide habitat for willow flycatchers and yellow-billed cuckoos, both federally listed species.
The next day, participants continued south to Bosque del Apache, which hosts the Festival of the Cranes, an annual event highlighting the tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes that winter in the Refuge and throughout the middle Rio Grande Valley.
In addition to highlighting how important New Mexico’s refuges are to local communities, the two-day long event also helped draw attention to ongoing attacks that are threatening the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Since the event, Congress has voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, undercutting the purpose of the Improvement Act. Additionally, Alaska’s congressional delegation has continued to push for the construction of a road through a portion of Izembek NWR that has been designated as Wilderness.
Because of these attacks and others, celebrations like these are more important than ever as they allow advocates to highlight local refuges and the central role they have in conserving species and connecting people to the outdoors.
-Michael
