Celebrating the Gila’s Web of Life
September 16 - 19, 2010
Silver City, NM
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Mother Nature’s Storybook: Animal Tracks and Sign
7:45 am to 1:15 pm Workshop/field trip with Cynthia Wolf. Participant limit: 20 Fee: $25 (includes set of animal track cards) Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 7:30 am, carpool to the Lichty Center, and return to Silver City by 1:15 pm. Travel time: 45 minutes each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Open your senses and learn to read the story that Nature writes when you attend this field trip along the Gila River. A brief classroom presentation at the Lichty Center will cover some tracking basics before we head into the field to practice locating and identifying tracks and sign.There will also be an opportunity to view previously casted wildlife tracks and to become skilled at making your own.
Cynthia Wolf is a wildlife biologist with over 25 years of field experience studying animals of the western states, including extensive familiarity with the wildlife of the Gila National Forest. She is passionate about all things Wild!
Writing from Place
9:00 am to noon Workshop with writer Mary Sojourner. San Vicente Creek. Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 8:45 am to carpool to the workshop site.Workshop open to teens and adults. Participant limit: 20 Fee: $25 Registration required, please click here for more info.
Join Mary Sojourner in a writing circle that will nourish your heart, mind and body. We’ll meet in a place of beauty and write with all our senses. You can expect to write a lot, to read to the circle if you want, and strengthen threads that you may have felt thinning out in a world of busy, busy, busy. This circle is for beginning writers, those who have written and have found themselves blocked, journal-keepers, “professional” writers and students. Bring a pillow or camp chair and writing tools. For more information, feel free to email Mary at bstarr67@gmail.com.
For Mary Sojourner’s biography, see "Connections: The Marvelous Complexity of Place", on page 12.
Biodiversity in Mimbres Pottery
10:00 am to noon. Tour of Western New Mexico University Museum with Dr. Cynthia Ann Bettison, Museum Director and Archaeologist. Meet at the WNMU Museum at 9:45 am. Participant limit: 20 Registration required, please click here for more info. Fee: $50, part of which supports the curation of these unique collections. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Dr. Bettison will lead a tour of the WNMU Museum, which houses the internationally acclaimed Eisele, Ballmer and Gehlm Collections of prehistoric Mimbres pottery. Witness prehistoric biodiversity of the Gila by viewing Mimbres pottery depicting various fish, water birds, cranes, and insects. Mogollon pottery on permanent exhibition at the University Museum features depictions of coatis, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, Mexican Free-tailed bats, mating pronghorn, blacktailed jackrabbits, horned lizards, white-winged ibis, and many other animal species.
As an added bonus, participants will be treated to a once-in-a-lifetime hands-on experience with the pottery in a restricted access collection area.
Dr. Cynthia Ann Bettison has been a professional archaeologist for the past 29 years and has been the director and archaeologist of Western New Mexico University for 19 years. She has a special love of Mimbres Mogollon archaeology and pottery.
Beavers: Busybodies of the Gila
Noon to 3:00 pm Field trip with Becky Latanich. Meet at the Gila Cliff Dwellings Visitors’ Center at 11:45 am. Participant limit: 25 Fee: $15 Registration required, please click here for more info.
Join a National Park Service Ranger in the search for evidence of how beavers have been busily transforming the lower reaches of Little Creek. During this moderate, 3-mile roundtrip excursion you will experience first-hand the myriad ways beavers modify their world and ours. Please wear shoes that can get wet, and bring water, a hat, and snacks.
Becky Latanich is the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. She has a Master’s degree in anthropology and museum studies and has worked at Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Rocky Mountain National Parks.
Mulberry Canyon: Restoring the Biodiversity of a High Desert Tributary to the Gila River
1:00 to 4:00 pm Field Trip with George Farmer, Linda Zatopek, and Dr. Kim McCreery. Meet at Silver City Visitors’ Center at noon. Participant limit: 25 Fee: $15 Travel Time: 1 hour each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Join Axle Canyon Preserve owners George Farmer and Linda Zatopek, and Dr. Kim McCreery, Regional Director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, for a walking tour of stream restoration activities in Mulberry Canyon, a tributary to the Gila River. The tour will include a brief history, the intended biodiversity results of the restoration activities, and a brief description of how water moves in the ephemeral environment.
Emphasis will be given to the re-establishment of native flora missing in the canyon and living examples of land restoration with a low carbon impact, as well as living sustainably and free of the electrical grid. Hike Level: Moderate, some elevation gain and sandy in places.
Linda Zatopek – a former city dweller who’s learning the importance of creating a healthy habitat for all beings, because learning is a continual process.
George Farmer - Growing up on the family ranch in Texas, “geo’s” (as George is known to friends) connection to the earth began at a very early age. An avid practitioner of giving back to the planet for all the planet has given to all living things, geo saw the opportunity to actually live a life-long calling in Mulberry Canyon. “The biodiversity of the high Chihuahuan Desert is vast and very delicate. If we can move the rudder of the ship, this canyon will heal itself in the years ahead.”
As a conservation ecologist, Kim McCreery’s passion for wild places and wildlife has taken her from the African bush to the Sonoran Desert, and now to the incredibly diverse and wild Gila region. Her extensive conservation work fuels her commitment to work with members of the community to conserve and restore the biodiversity that sustains all life.
Effects of Projected Climate Change in Southwestern New Mexico
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm River Lecture Series presentation by Dr. David Gutzler. Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St. Fee: River Lecture Series Pass: $15 or Daily Pass: $5 Available at door.
Global models simulate pronounced warming trends across southwestern New Mexico in the 21st Century. In this presentation we show the results of two efforts to illustrate projected climate change in the Gila Country. In the first study, we combine model output and historical data to generate a 21st Century scenario for regional temperature and precipitation, and convert the results into a commonly used drought index. In this scenario the entire western U.S. undergoes a sharp trend toward drought conditions as the climate warms. In the second study, we use a single global model simulation as input to a higher resolution regional climate model, and then interpolate this output to even smaller scales to estimate temperature changes in individual high-elevation watersheds. The resulting temperature changes are then compared with the known physiological threshold for Gila trout. Suitable warm season habitat for Gila trout is reduced by about 70% in this scenario.
Dr. David Gutzler is Professor of Meteorology and Climatology at the University of New Mexico. His research at UNM focuses on climate variability and change across western North America.
Conservation of Biological Diversity in a World of Profound Change: Promise and Peril in the Age of Climate Change and Energy Decline
2:15 pm to 3:15 pm River Lecture Series presentation by Dr. Guy McPherson. Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St. Fee: River Lecture Series Pass: $15 or Daily Pass: $5 Available at door.
The world’s climate is changing at an accelerating rate, with profound implications for humans and the ecosystems on which we depend. In addition, the world’s energy supply is rapidly declining, which is leading to significant contraction of the world’s industrial economy. Dealing with the two sides of the fossil-fuel coin -- reduced energy availability and global climate change -- will require enormous courage, compassion, and creativity. In addition to inspiration and motivation, we need practical solutions to mitigate for climate change and energy decline. These solutions must be based on a realistic set of assumptions about climate and energy. This presentation describes the nature of our predicaments, offers a series of assumptions based on forecasts for climate change and energy decline, and then provides a general template for action focused on retention of biological diversity.
Guy McPherson is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for 20 years. His scholarly work, which has produced nine books and more than 100 articles, has for many years focused on conservation of biological diversity. He lives in an off-grid, straw-bale house where he puts into practice his life-long interest in sustainable living via organic gardening, raising small animals for eggs and milk, and working with members of his rural community.
Bats of the Gila River Valley
6:00 pm to 9:30 pm Evening field trip Participant limit: 20 Fee: $15 Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 5:45 pm, carpool to Saddle Rock Canyon, and return to Silver City by 9:30 pm. Travel time: 20-25 minutes each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Bats are essential to the health of our natural world. They help control pests and are vital pollinators and seed-dispersers for countless plants. Yet these wonderfully diverse and beneficial creatures are among the least studied and most misunderstood of animals. Centuries of myths and misinformation still generate needless fears and threaten bats and their habitats around the world. Bat populations are declining almost everywhere. Losing bats would have devastating consequences for natural ecosystems and human economies. Knowledge is the key.
Join Marikay Ramsey for a presentation on the natural history and conservation needs of Southwestern bats. Participants will help set up mist nets to capture bats and witness these remarkable creatures up close and personal. Bring warm clothes for cool evening temperatures, a lawn chair, and a flashlight or headlamp.
Marikay Ramsey is the Threatened and Endangered Species Program Lead for the Bureau of Land Management in NM, TX, OK & KS.
Beginning Birds of the Gila
This event consists of two parts: 1) Classroom presentation on Friday, 9/17, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at the Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St.; 2) Field trip on Saturday, 9/18. Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 6:45 am, and carpool to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Participants will return to Silver City by 1:00 pm. Travel time: 2 hours each way – it’s a beautiful drive on the Trail of the Mountain Spirits National Scenic Byway. The class fee, $25 for adults, children free, includes both the classroom session and the field trip. This is a family event, for adults and children 7 years or older. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Audubon New Mexico and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument invite you to join them for a two part family event, Beginning Birds of the Gila! They will explore the many adaptations of birds with an emphasis on identifying commonly seen birds in the Gila National Forest. Audubon staff and volunteers will take you through hands-on activities exploring field guides and real bird study skins. Saturday’s field trip will take participants on a birding tour around the Gila Cliff Dwellings.
Please bring the following for the bird tour: backpack; hat, sunglasses and sunscreen; hiking shoes you don’t mind getting wet; food and water (Please bring enough for the day in the event you decide to spend more time at Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument after the bird walk. Food and gas are available in Gila Hot Springs.); clothing layers and a rain jacket; binoculars (Audubon will have some loaner binoculars. Please see Audubon staff during the classroom work.)
The Saturday morning bird tour will be approximately 2 hours in duration and the hiking is considered moderate. Your feet will get wet with several shallow river crossings throughout the duration of the tour.
Dana Vackar Strang is the Director of Education for the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe and for Audubon New Mexico. An experienced leader and educator, Dana has developed and implemented statewide education programs that emphasize natural resource conservation and sustainability through hands-on, experiential activities.
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