Monarch butterfly on tropical mikweed. Hover over the image and see a Monarch catepillar on tropical milkweed. Credit: Sue and Mike Kersey, USFWS.

June 2018
In celebration of National Pollinator Week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is featuring a new pollinator each month on its updated Pollinator page. More information about pollinators can be found in the presentation, "The Birds and the Bees ... and the Beetles?" on that same page, on the Southwest Region's Monarch page and through upcoming Monarch webinars.

Visit the Pollinator page for more information.

Neslon Roach on top of Couch mountain. Credit: TPWD.

June 2018
Roach, a lawyer by profession and a conservationist by practice, has transformed part of Prairie Creek into a habitat where river otter, white-tail deer and other wildlife thrive. He’s restored a stream that “didn’t look right” into something that is a treasure to behold.

Read the entire National Good Neighbor story.

Dad and son fishing. Credit: Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation

June 2018
June is Great Outdoors Month! Check out all the family fun taking place June 2-10 to celebrate National Fishing & Boating Week. Look for free fishing days, boating safety classes, family events, and more!

Fishing Guide
Recreation.gov

New Mexico and Federal Agencies Complete Restoration Plan for Environmental Damage at Chevron Mining Inc, Questa Site

May 2018
The New Mexico Office of Natural Resources Trustees, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other trustees have completed a Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment for the Chevron Mining Inc, Questa Mine.

The mine and tailing ponds are in northern New Mexico adjacent to the Red River near Questa, NM. The site is the location of a large groundwater contamination plume that will require treatment to mitigate human health risks. Restoration also includes aquatic and riparian habitat areas to benefit fish, aquatic invertebrates, birds, and other wildlife.

Learn more...

Mexican Wolf. Credit: Jim Clark/USFWS

Catron County Man Sentenced for Federal Misdemeanor Wildlife Violation Arising Out of Killing of Mexican Gray Wolf

May 2018
U.S. Attorney John C. Anderson and Acting Special Agent in Charge Phillip Land of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement of the Southwest Region, announced that Craig Thiessen pleaded guilty yesterday to a federal misdemeanor wildlife violation arising out of the taking of a Mexican gray wolf.  Immediately after entering the guilty plea, Thiessen was sentenced to a one-year term of probation and was ordered to pay $2,300 in restitution to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program.

Read the news release

Dr. Shannon Brewer holds a radio tagged Neosho smallmouth bass. Research was funded by the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. Credit: OSU.

May 2018
If you want to know more about smallmouth bass, then you need to listen to this Bass Pro Outdoor World Radio interview of Dr. Shannon Brewer. She has researched smallmouth bass in Oklahoma’s Elk River and tributaries by following fish implanted with radio transmitters. This fascinating work of was paid for through the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, collected through taxes paid by fishing tackle manufacturers on fishing gear, passed on to the angler. She conducted the work expressly for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.

Listen to the interview with Dr. Shannon Brewer.

Willow Springer walks back to her turkey blind beneath a Fremont cottonwood at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge awards by lottery a limited number of turkey licenses each spring, for youth only. Credit: Craig Springer, USFWS.

May 2018
Across the expanse of the field, a turkey gobbles from a roost tree similar in shape and size to the tree we use for cover. In short order, the fresh light reveals two flocks of wild turkeys on the ground in the distance. Toms and jakes puff their chests and fan their tails. These birds are keen—genetically coded—to be aware of their vulnerabilities. Conservationist Aldo Leopold said that hunting revives something that was formerly inherent in our daily lives.

Read the entire story...

Tobusch fishhook cactus. Credit: Chris Best, USFWS.

May 2018
In 1979 with fewer than 200 plants known to exist, the Tobusch fishhook cactus was thought to be almost extinct. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of multiple partners including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Land Conservancy, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, The Nature Conservancy and central Texas landowners, today more than 3,300 cactuses are known to exist at 105 sites across the Edwards Plateau area of Texas. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is downlisting the cactus from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Read the news release.
Read additional information at https://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/AustinTexas/.

Kuenzler hedgehog cactus. Credit: Frank Weaver/USFWS.

May 2018
When first listed under the Endangered Species Act, only 200 Kuenzler hedgehog cacti were known from two southeastern New Mexico locations. But the discovery of additional populations, together with efforts to conserve the plant and its habitat, indicate the small, magenta-flowered cactus is no longer at near-term risk of extinction. As a result, the we are downlisting the Kuenzler hedgehog cactus from “endangered” to “threatened.”

Read the News Release
Read the Downlisting Rule

Dr. Shannon Brewer with Oklahoma State University Ph.D. candidate Andrew Miller holds a radio tagged Neosho smallmouth bass. Research was funded by the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. Credit: OSU.

May 2018
About the time that redbuds flash their pretty pinkish blooms on eastern Oklahoma’s hillsides and gray streamside sycamores unfurl their fresh leaves the color akin to a wet lime, there’s something curious going on. And it goes mostly sight unseen.

Read the full story...