Welcome to the Middle Rio Grande Endangered
Species Act Collaborative Program

The Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative Program (Program) is a partnership involving 20 current signatories (see box below) organized to protect and improve the status of endangered species along the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) of New Mexico while simultaneously protecting existing and future regional water uses. Two species of particular concern to the Program are the Rio Grande silvery minnow and the southwestern willow flycatcher.

During fiscal year 2004 Congress appropriated nearly $7 million for Program activities, while New Mexico State agencies provided more than $2 million for Program related projects. Program signatories and non-signatory participants contributed in-kind services that included land, access to land, personnel services and voluntary fish salvage efforts.

Given the ongoing drought, the Program prioritized funding of activities in fiscal year 2004 to meet multiple Program objectives:

1. Manage species to ensure survival through activities that augment silvery minnow populations.

2. Restore species habitat, through activities that focus on projects that provide high value to the silvery minnow, that can be constructed 'on the ground' within two years, that are constructed upstream of the Isleta Diversion structure; and that have completed designs and permits in place.

3. Seek funding to acquire water to meet the flow requirements listed in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) 2003 Biological Opinion (BO), and implement supporting measures for water management to meet the long-term goal of a sustainable river.

The Program accomplished the following 2004 objectives:

1. The USFWS March 2003 BO limit on silvery minnows killed was not exceeded;
2. the upper reaches of the MRG were augmented with over a hundred thousand silvery minnows;
3. 12,865 silvery minnows were salvaged and relocated in 2004;
4. the USFWS March 2003 BO river flow targets were met; and
5. a number of habitat restoration projects were planned for the Albuquerque reach of the Rio Grande. Long-term restoration efforts include projects on river and bosque habitat throughout the MRG.

Recent Program Accomplishments:

• With the Santa Ana and Sandia pueblos, the Program has funded and implemented habitat restoration efforts that include a focus on the eradication of invasive saltcedar and other non-native species and the planting of native grasses and trees, with the goal to create diverse habitat for native plants and animals while reducing hazardous vegetative fuels that increase catastrophic risk to habitat as well as local residences.

• The Program, through the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission (NMISC), completed a Long- Term Habitat Restoration Plan. This plan provides a framework to implement and integrate actions needed to address water, bosque, and endangered species management issues along the MRG. Its framework will guide efforts to solicit, review, and implement habitat restoration proposals intending to create long-term, self-sustaining habitat for the silvery minnow and the flycatcher. The plan also provides a technical resource for developing and assessing most Program-funded restoration projects.

• In 2003, a $1.7 million state-of-the-art facility was built for the breeding and rearing of silvery minnows in captivity. The City of Albuquerque Biological Park provided the land and is providing staff to manage and operate the Naturalized Refugium (refugium) with support from the NMISC. In 2004, captive spawns at the refugium produced 197,000 eggs, with an additional 150,000 eggs produced by hormone-induced spawns.