Gray wolf arrives at New Mexico zoo for recovery program

December 27, 2018

This Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018, photo shows a Mexican gray wolf that is introduced at the ABQ BioPark in Albuquerque, N.M. The Albuquerque zoo said Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018, it received the wolf earlier this month from the Binder Zoo in …more

Albuquerque's zoo has received another Mexican gray wolf as part of an international recovery effort that includes breeding the endangered animals in captivity to ensure their genetic viability.

The ABQ BioPark said Thursday it received the wolf earlier this month from the Binder Zoo in Michigan. The animal will be a mate for a 4-year-old female wolf already at the Albuquerque zoo.

The transfer stemmed from a coordinated effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan, and the zoos holding Mexican wolves.

The wild population in Arizona and New Mexico has struggled to gain significant ground since the first release in 1998. About 114 wolves are believed to be roaming the two states.

Source: 

Lawsuit urges feds to protect snakes in Arizona, New Mexico – via Herp Digest

The Associated Press Dec 21, 2018 Updated Dec 21, 2018

A conservation group is suing the Trump administration over the protection of critical habitat for garter snakes in Arizona and New Mexico.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Tucson, accusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of endangering the Northern Mexican garter snake and the narrow-headed garter snake.

In the filing, the organization says the populations of both snakes are at lower densities in both states.

Both became listed as threatened in 2014 under the Endangered Species Act.

The Trump administration needs to safeguard the rivers the snakes rely on, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity says.

A spokesman for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not immediately a message and email seeking comment.

2 Dome-Headed Dinosaurs the Size of German Shepherds Discovered

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | November 9, 2016 01:56pm ET

The discovery of a pair of fossilized skulls from dome-headed dinosaurs is shedding light on how these bizarre creatures called pachycephalosaurs evolved, researchers say.

Both of the skulls are relatively complete. One, discovered in the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah, dates to about 76.5 million years ago. The other, found in the Kirtland Formation of New Mexico, is about 73.5 million years old, the researchers said.

The location of these skulls — in the southern Mountain states — indicates that pachycephalosaurids may have diversified in the south before they moved north and gave rise to the pachycephalosaur known as Stegoceras, said study lead researcher David Evans, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto.


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New reptile species from 212 million years ago

Undergraduate geoscience researchers leads study

Date: September 8, 2016

Source: Virginia Tech

An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences researchers.

Leading the paper that names the previously unknown animal is undergraduate researcher Emily Lessner of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, a double major in the departments of Geosciences and Biological Sciences, both in the Virginia Tech College of Science. Lessner's paper detailing the fossil of the animal -- jawbones, other skull fragments, and hip-bones -- appears in this week's open science journal, PeerJ.

Vivaron haydeni was found in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in 2009 during an excavation co-led by Sterling Nesbitt, then a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and now an assistant professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech. Some of the fossils remained sealed in protective plaster jackets until 2014, when they were transported to Blacksburg for study. That's where Lessner enters.

At the time a sophomore majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Geosciences, she was seeking an independent research experience that piqued her interest and provided a challenge. She found it with the Paleobiology Research Group in Derring Hall.

Nesbitt had not arrived on campus yet and was looking for students interested in conducting research projects. When Lessner heard of the opportunity and the chance to work with Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker, also a newly arriving paleontologist in the college, Lessner jumped at the chance.

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Woman attacked by bear while running marathon in New Mexico

Officials say female black bear attacked after cub ran up a tree

Runner suffers bites, scratches and injuries to head, neck and upper body

Associated Press in Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico

Sunday 19 June 201620.55 BSTLast modified on Sunday 19 June 201621.31 BST

Wildlife officials say a bear attacked a woman who was running a marathon in a national preserve in northern New Mexico.

The woman suffered several bites and scratches and had injuries to her head, neck and upper body that were not life-threatening.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (DGF) said the woman was racing on Saturday afternoon when a female black bear confronted her in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Officers said the victim surprised the bear after the bear’s cub ran up a nearby tree.

Other joggers helped the woman until emergency crews arrived. She was airlifted to an Albuquerque hospital.

The New Mexico DGF and the National Park Service warned people to stay away from the area.

Officials were trying to find the bear, to euthanize it and test it for rabies. Although rabies in bears is rare, the DGF said in a statement, “it is nearly 100% fatal in humans if not properly treated”.

Source … 

New Mexico museum unveils first-of-its-kind dinosaur fossil

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN | Associated Press – Fri, Nov 6, 2015

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Paleontologists in New Mexico unveiled the first baby Pentaceratops skull ever discovered as hundreds of people lined up to get a look.

Scientists cut open the giant plaster jacket that protected the skull of the rhinoceros-like, plant-eating dinosaur as it was airlifted out of the desert badlands of northwestern New Mexico and trucked to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

They revealed the shield-like part of the dinosaur's skull, some teeth, an arm bone, a rib and what looked like a vertebrae, but museum curator Spencer Lucas said there's still much work to be done.

Now, technicians will begin the painstaking work of digging out the fossils from the rock in which they have been encased for some 70 million years.

The process will take many months, but the public will be able to watch from windows that offer a view into the museum's preparation room.

Hundreds of people, including parents with their children, lined up along the windows during a free public viewing Thursday evening. Some children got an up-close look as museum staff showed off the find, while other visitors held up their smartphones on the other side of the glass.

Lucas said the fossils are significant and sure to provide new insight into the dinosaurs that roamed North America tens of millions of years ago. Less than 10 adult Pentaceratops skulls have been unearthed over the past century, and this marks the first baby skull to ever be recovered, Lucas said.

"So here now we have the first glimpse at growth and the early stages of life of this dinosaur," he said.

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Tasmanian devil killed at US zoo had skull crushed by asphalt block

Police investigating case believe the marsupial was killed either by workers or visitors at zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Australian Associated Press

theguardian.com, Sunday 19 October 2014 01.41 BST

A Tasmanian devil at a US zoo has had its skull crushed by a block of asphalt and police are trying to determine whether a zoo employee or a member of the public was responsible.

Jasper was one of four Tasmanian devils shipped from Australia to the Albuquerque Bio Park Zoo in New Mexico last December.

It appeared he did not die instantly, with evidence from an examination by the zoo’s head veterinarian Ralph Zimmerman suggesting the injured devil crawled to a log in the enclosure before dying.

“The first suspicion of how the devil died was that it was possibly killed by another devil,” the police report states.

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Bachelor Party Stumbles Upon Rare Mastodon Skull

By Kelly Dickerson, Staff Writer | June 18, 2014 09:53am ET

Elephant Butte Lake State Park in New Mexico is named for an elephant-shaped hill on the north side of the park, but now the name seems even more appropriate after a bachelor party hiking there discovered a 3-million-year-old stegomastodon skull — the prehistoric ancestor of mammoths and elephants.

Members of the bachelor party noticed a bone sticking a couple inches out of the sand by the Rio Grande River earlier this month, the Telegraph reported. The men dug up what turned out to be an enormous skull and sent photos to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Paleontologists who arrived on the scene identified the remains as a stegomastodon skull. [See Photos of the Mastodon Skull from the Excavation]

Gary Morgan, paleontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science who identified the skull, said it's not uncommon for hikers and other passersby to discover major fossils like this one in the park.

Read more at:

Group aims to remove prairie dogs from town

CLOVIS, N.M. —A New Mexico town is moving hundreds of prairie dogs out of the state.

Members of the Clovis City Commission approved relocating 200-300 prairie dogs to Mitchell County, Texas.

A group called Citizens for Prairie Dogs has until Feb. 1 to complete the task of removing the dogs from area parks.

This past year, the city poisoned hundreds of prairie dogs at a local park at the request of nearby farmers, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Those actions snagged national attention.

Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/new-mexico/albuquerque/group-aims-to-remove-prairie-dogs-from-town/-/9153728/22324232/-/qwj9lf/-/index.html#ixzz2h8a5zKOW

Mysterious Elk Deaths Plague New Mexico

By Benjamin Radford, LiveScience's Bad Science Columnist | September 10, 2013 

Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are puzzling over the mysterious deaths of more than 100 elk, apparently all within a 24-hour period, in rural New Mexico.

The elk were found Aug. 27 on a 75,000-acre ranch north of the city of Las Vegas.

Livestock deaths, by themselves, are not unusual — there are many things that can fell large animals, including predators, poachers, a natural or man-made toxin, disease, drought, heat, starvation, and even lightning. 

Read further

8 Quirky Species Discovered in Lava-Tube Caves

Eight new arthropod species and a new hibernating site for Townsend's big-eared bats have been discovered in New Mexico lava-tube caves, adding to the limited ecologic understanding of this unique habitat type.

Lava-tube caves form when underground offshoots of lava flows spill downslope but cool around the edges, emptying hollow, artery like cavities that can span many miles long. More than 200 such caves extend beneath El Malpais National Monument in western New Mexico and support ecosystems distinct from more commonly known limestone caves, which develop different shapes and air current patterns.

The resource management team of El Malpais National Monument conducts routine, large-scale inventories of the caves to document roosting and hibernating sites of bats, and the habitat range of other animal species. But these sweeping surveys often overlook more elusive species hiding in remote corners of the caves.

To develop a more comprehensive inventory of the national monument's animal life, a team of researchers based at Northern Arizona University conducted a systematic study of 11 caves aimed to document all inhabitants of those caves. The results were recently published in the summer issue of the journal Park Science.

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Internet Outage? Leave it to beaver

The culprit behind a 20-hour internet and mobile phone outage that affected almost 2,000 people has finally been identified – as a beaver.

More known for building dams, this particular rodent took it upon itself to chew through a fibre line last week, knocking out services in northern New Mexico in the US.

CenturyLink spokesman David Gonzales said the beaver’s internet activities were discovered by contractors working to repair the blackout.

While 1,800 people in Taos County saw their wireless internet knocked out by the beaver, it is not known how many mobile phone users were affected.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/06/28/internet-outage-leave-it-to-beaver-3861434/

Two pairs of wolves released in Arizona and New Mexico

Wolves released into Gila Wilderness & Apache National Forest

May 2013. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) have released a pair of Mexican wolves into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area of Arizona. 

Second pair

In a separate action, the Service also released a second pair of Mexican wolves into the wolf recovery area in New Mexico. Both pairs, selected to increase genetic diversity of the wild wolf population, were previously held at the Service's Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility where they had undergone an acclimation process to determine their suitability for release.

Photo courtesy of AZGFD

"We continue to be committed to strategic releases that improve genetic diversity, increase the number of breeding wolves, and offset illegal mortalities in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area," said Benjamin Tuggle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Southwest Regional Director. 

"The strategically-planned release of the wolf pair into Arizona is to improve the genetic integrity of the wolf population. The release approaches being used are tailored to encourage these wolves to acclimate and behave as wild wolves. Our experience shows that wild- born, wild-raised wolves have a much better chance at success," says Director Larry Voyles, AGFD.

Read on

Coyote-Shooting Contest Awards Assault Rifle As Prize In New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Coyote hunters in New Mexico will have the chance to compete for a couple of high-caliber grand prizes just in time for the holidays — a pair of Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifles.

A shooting range and gun store in Albuquerque is hosting a two-day contest to see who can kill the most coyotes, despite protests from environmentalists.

KOB-TV reports that Calibers Shooting Sports Center is holding the challenge for two-member teams beginning Dec. 1.

Susan Weiss, an advocate for the “Coexist with Coyotes” group, calls the competition “immoral and disgusting.”

Caliber’s owner, Ryan Burt, says he came up with the idea after he was approached by several ranchers from around the state who have been dealing with coyotes harming livestock.

Coyotes have no protection under New Mexico law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/coyote-shooting-contest-assault-rifle-new-mexico_n_2008707.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Rabies outbreak in Carlsbad prompts warning to avoid wild animals

CARLSBAD - You see a helpless, injured animal in the wild and know it needs immediate medical attention. What should you do?

"Don't touch it. For personal safety, call a veterinarian like myself or animal control," local veterinarian Samantha Uhrig advises.

Uhrig, who is licensed to care for injured wildlife at her Desert Willow Veterinarian clinic on Fiesta Drive, said in some cases, bringing in a bird that has been injured in the wild is OK.

But bringing in a wild, injured animal for medical attention should be left to the professionals, she advises. The current rabies outbreak in skunks is a major concern and a source for infecting other wild animals and humans.

"The city and county's animal control officers are vaccinated against rabies and they have the proper equipment to catch the animal. People also can call me. I'll go and get the animal," Uhrig said. "We get a lot of orphaned wildlife that people find and bring to us for medical treatment. I strongly advise against doing that. A lot of baby mammals such as raccoons and foxes look cute and cuddly, but they can carry the rabies virus. Sometimes they show symptoms and sometimes they don't. But it can be passed on to humans."
Continued:  http://www.currentargus.com/carlsbad-news/ci_20967909/rabies-outbreak-carlsbad-prompts-warning-avoid-wild-animals?source=rss

The Cockerell bumblebee bee is alive and well and living in New Mexico, scientists from the University of California, Riverside report. The Cockerell, the rarest species of bumblebee in the United States, was last seen in 1956.

The Cockerell bumblebee bee is alive and well and living in New Mexico, scientists from the University of California, Riverside report. The Cockerell, the rarest species of bumblebee in the United States, was last seen in 1956.


But on August 31 a team from the university found three of them along a highway north of Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Cockerell's bumblebee is believed to live in an area of less than 300 square miles, giving it the most limited range of any bumblebee species in the world.

There are nearly 50 species of native U.S. bumblebees, several on the verge of extinction because of habituate loss. "Franklin's Bumblebee," for example, has been seen only once since 2003.

The good news for the Cockerell's Bumblebee is that unlike many rare species, its range is mostly composed of National Forest and Apache tribal land, so it's unlikely to be under serious threat of habitat loss at the moment, says Douglas Yanega, senior museum scientist at UC Riverside.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/index

Dead Rhino Remains in Albuquerque Creates Controversy

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- New Mexico authorities are making a stink after an odor wafting from a New Mexico property lead them to a foul discovery – dozens of dead animals, including the remains of a rhino named Sally.

Authorities plan to cite, Ruben Saavedra, with illegally stockpiling animal carcasses after finding two dozen sheep, three horses, and the rhinoceros on the Albuquerque property. Saavedra, who operates an animal disposal service, said Thursday that personal problems caused him to get behind on his work.

"So I know I did wrong, but we're remedying the problem," he said.

Saavedra says he took the carcasses to an animal interment site – where Sally, a 44-year-old zoo rhino euthanized in December, was laid to rest – and that authorities watched.

Saavedra faces a fine and jail time.

http://weirdnews.aol.com/2011/06/03/dead-rhino-remains-in-alb_n_870894.html

Dunes Sagebrush Lizard Proposed for Endangered Listing in ESA

More than eight years after the Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned to earn protection for the imperiled dunes sagebrush lizard, this week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally proposed to declare the species endangered. The light-brown, yellow-eyed lizard -- about the length of a human hand from nose to tail -- dwells in the dunes of New Mexico and Texas, where it buries itself in cool, white sand in the shade of shinnery oaks to avoid predators and regulate its body temperature. Unfortunately, oil and gas development and herbicide spraying are fast destroying the habitat of this rare reptile -- which already has the second-smallest range of any North American lizard. The species was first found to warrant federal protection in 2004 following our 2002 petition, but instead of adding it to the endangered species list, the feds made it a "candidate" for Endangered Species Act status -- putting off real protection indefinitely.


"The unique dunes sagebrush lizard may finally be receiving the help it needs to survive," said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. "Unfortunately, during eight years of delay, the lizard lost more of its habitat to oil and gas development, putting it at greater risk of extinction and making recovery harder."

Herp Digest Volume # 10 Issue # 54 12/16/10

Parasite Caused Frogs With Too Many Legs, Scientist Says

LOS LUNAS, N.M. -- Frogs in a Los Lunas pond are surfacing with either too many legs or too few, and one university researcher said he’s pinpointed the cause.


Worried viewers called Target 7 to find out if the water was contaminated and if it was harmful to humans.

Los Lunas officials didn’t know about the frogs until they were contacted by Target 7. Immediately, Parks and Recreation Director Michael Jaramillio closed off the pond and had the water tested.


Target 7 also conducted water tests, and reporter Anna Velasquez broke out in rashes after collecting samples.

Mason Ryan is an amphibian expert at the University of New Mexico who is investigating the frog deformities.

“In the big picture of the number of ponds and the number of frog species we have in this country, it's kind of a relatively rare event,” Ryan said.

Ryan said this is New Mexico’s first known case of bullfrog deformities. Out of the 178 frogs collected, he said 80 percent were deformed and all were juveniles.

“As with most stories in biology, it's a complex story with multiple things happening to cause this,” Ryan said.

Predators are responsible for the frogs that are missing legs, and a parasite called trematode caused three or more legs in some frogs, Ryan said.

“They have a complex life cycle where they go through a bird, into a snail, and they live in the water and then they enter the developing tadpole,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he believes something must have happened in the pond to trigger a spike in the parasite’s population.

“Our nitrogen level may have been high in the pond some time last year due to possibly and overspill of fertilizer,” Jaramillo said.


Jaramillo admits that a groundskeeper fertilized the grass around the pond and accidentally spilled some into the water.

“How much of it? They're thinking a couple pounds at the most, it wasn't like it was intentionally put in there,” Jaramillo said.

The amount of fertilizer was not enough to kill off the pond’s fish or other organisms, but may have been enough to cause the frogs’ deformities.