Celebrating the Gila’s Web of Life
September 16 - 19, 2010
Silver City, NM
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Otterlicious: Field trip to the River Otter Release Site on the Gila River
8:30 am to noon Field Trip with Dr. Melissa Savage. Participant limit: 25 Fee: $15 Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 8:15 am, carpool to Mogollon Box Campground, and return to Silver City by noon. Travel time: 45 minutes each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Join geographer and otter nut Melissa Savage on a hike to the location of river otter restoration along the Gila River, planned for the fall of 2010. Along the way, Melissa will talk about the river otter’s habitat, behavior, diet, history in this area, and more. She’ll show you the site where river otters will be returned to their ancestral home on the Gila River, after 50 years of absence. This is a beautiful stretch of the Gila River, so enjoy the hike while you dream of river otters! Bring a hat, sunscreen, plenty of water, and snacks. There are a few river crossings on this moderate hike, so please wear water shoes.
Melissa Savage is a Geographer with interests in forest and fire dynamics. As Director of the Four Corners Institute in Santa Fe, she has been one of the collaborators in the NM Friends of River Otters, which has worked for a decade to bring otters back to New Mexico’s rivers.
Birds of the Mid-elevation Gila River
9:00 am to 3:00 pm Field Trip with Mike Neal. Participant limit: 15 Fee: $15 Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 8:45 am, carpool to the Gila River Bird Conservation Area, and return to Silver City by 3:00 pm. Travel time: one hour each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
Explore the mid-elevation biotic diversity of the Gila River’s Bird Conservation Area with Mike Neal, HawkWatch International Research Biologist. The focus of this exploration will be on the lifeblood that the Gila River lends to America’s most unique and diverse ecosystem. Foundational topics will include movement ecology and how keystone species of this ecosystem provide important insight into the relative health of the entire system (with a spotlight on Common Black Hawks and other raptor species of interest). The walk and talk session will cover about four miles of the river corridor over a 4 hour period. Participants should bring a packable lunch, a small day or hydration pack, at least 2 liters of water, binoculars, sandals or wading shoes (as we will cross the river multiple times), hat, sunscreen, and appropriate clothing layers for the anticipated weather conditions that day.
Mike Neal is the Southwest Regional Monitoring Coordinator for HawkWatch International. An avid outdoorsman, Mike’s passion is field conservation efforts focused on birds of prey. He has worked with nearly every species of western raptor.
Butterfly Walk with the Butterfly Guy
9:00 am to noon Field Trip with Steve Cary. Participant limit: 12 Fee: $15 Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 8:45 am, walk to San Vicente Creek, and return to the Visitors’ Center by noon. Registration required, please click here for more info.
September mornings offer great butterfly watching opportunities, especially in riverside settings like this one along San Vicente Creek. In this typical Grant County butterfly landscape, the possibilities are almost endless. Will we see buckeyes along the creek edge? Red-spotted admirals in the willows? Cloudless sulphurs wandering north? Monarchs wandering south? Will we see any caterpillars or butterfly predators? Bring your close-focus binoculars, field guides, butterfly net (if you have one) and sharp eyes. Steve will have a net to occasionally catch, examine and release butterflies we see. Walking will be easy to moderate. And please bring the usual hiking gear: sturdy shoes, hat, sunscreen, water, and snacks.
Steve Cary has been studying New Mexico Lepidoptera for 30 years. After publishing numerous scientific articles and offering countless walks and talks for the general public, Steve has become New Mexico’s unofficial “Butterfly Guy.” His book, “Butterfly Landscapes of New Mexico,” was published in 2009.
Kayak the Gila
9:00 am to 2:00 pm Kayak trip with Far Flung Adventures. Participant limit: 15 Fee: $75. Registration required, please click here for more info. We will contact participants with information on where to meet.
Back by popular demand! Join river runners extraordinaire, Steve Harris and Adrian Oglesby, on a kayak trip down the Gila River. Not only do these two know how to float rivers, they also understand the reasons for keeping our rivers free-flowing. Participants will paddle inflatable kayaks on a 1.5 - 2 mile stretch of the Gila River in the Cliff-Gila Valley, where they will float through recovering riparian areas. If you need coaching, you couldn’t ask for better instructors than Steve and Adrian. And we guarantee you’ll have fun on the river with them!
Participants should bring: hat; sunglasses with retainer strap; shorts; short-sleeved shirt; sneakers, booties or water shoes (with sandals a distant second choice); 1-2 liters of water; lunch and snacks; sunscreen; and a lightweight shelled jacket in case of weather. Far Flung Adventure will provide one-person inflatable kayaks, paddles, helmets and life jackets. Although previous river experience is not necessary, all should be in good physical condition for several short carries.
Steve Harris, the owner of Far Flung Adventures, has been kayaking for over 30 years. Adrian Oglesby, an experienced kayaker, serves on the board of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.
People, Water, and Dragonflies
11:00 am to 3:00 pm Field Trip with Bob Schiowitz and Elizabeth Toney. Participant limit: 25 Fee: $15 Meet at the Silver City Visitors’ Center at 10:45 am, carpool to the Dragonfly Site, and return to the Visitors’ Center by 3:00 pm. Travel time: 20 minutes each way. Registration required, please click here for more info.
How do we know what wildlife inhabited an area before there were written records? Clues to ancient biodiversity can be found in prehistoric rock art. Join archaeologists Bob Schiowitz and Elizabeth Toney on a field trip to the Dragonfly Prehistoric Rock Art Site near Fort Bayard. Bob will lead participants to a prehistoric rock art site where ancient peoples depicted local wildlife. Along the way, other prehistoric Mimbres sites will be visited to illustrate the connectedness of cultural and natural systems in the web of life along Twin Sisters Creek. Bob has led numerous field trips for interested laypeople to historic and prehistoric cultural heritage sites in his 30 year career with the Gila National Forest. Elizabeth Toney is a graduate student from the University of Oklahoma with research interests in small Mimbres habitation sites and Mimbres iconography. She has a specific research interest in insectoid images, such as dragonflies, depicted on Mimbres ceramic bowls. Bring a hat, sturdy hiking shoes, water, lunch and snacks. This 3 mile round trip hike is easy walking on established trails.
Bob Schiowitz is the South Zone Archeologist for the Gila National Forest in Silver City. Elizabeth Toney currently works as an Assistant South Zone Archeologist for the Gila National Forest while continuing with research to complete her Master’s Degree requirements with the University of Oklahoma.
Predatory Management: Cascade Effects on Biodiversity
11:00 am – noon River Lecture Series presentation by Michael Robinson. Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St. Fee: River Lecture Series Pass: $15 or Daily Pass: $5 Available at door.
Nineteenth century western settlement entailed the gunning down of almost all bison, elk, deer, bighorn sheep and pronghorn, and their replacement with cattle, sheep and other livestock. These changes cast humanity into immediate conflict with predators such as wolves, jaguars, grizzly bears, cougars and coyotes. However, inefficient persecution and compensatory reproduction allowed many predators to survive.
From 1915 onward, a systematic federal poisoning, trapping and shooting program targets predators, rodents and birds. The program eradicated most predators by the 1920s, leading to cascading effects on other species, and harmful mitigation.
In the Gila ecosystem, wolf extermination led to a deer irruption, which prompted construction of the North Star Road to provide hunters’ access to an area that had been designated as the world’s first inviolate roadless area; the road divides and degrades the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness Areas. Killing of mountain lions led to porcupines increasing; their girdling of trees led to federal porcupine poisoning.
The legacy of predator extermination includes the continuing degradation of Gila wetlands, and decline of upland animals such as pronghorn. Mexican gray wolf and jaguar recovery can help heal the wounds, but only if federal policy-makers learn from and reverse their predecessors’ failed practices.
Michael Robinson has worked for the Center for Biological Diversity since their inception. The author of Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West, Robinson is a tireless advocate for the recovery of wolves, jaguars, and grizzly bears.
Economic Benefits of a Healthy Gila River
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Panel Discussion with Jennifer Hobson, Kevin Bixby, and Dr. Brian Hurd. Moderated by Dr. Guy McPherson. Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St. Fee: River Lecture Series Pass: $15 or Daily Pass: $5 Available at door.
Healthy rivers provide society with a range of benefits, from drinking and irrigation water, ecosystem services such as water purification and flood mitigation, habitat for wildlife, to recreational use. Research has shown that natural and recreational amenities attract and retain people and businesses. Tourism can be a significant contributor to local economies that conserve wild places. Join panelists for an insightful discussion of the range of ecosystem services healthy rivers provide, the eco-tourism potential of the Gila and its watershed, and the economic value of preserving the Gila’s biodiversity.
Jennifer Hobson is the Deputy Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Tourism Department. Kevin Bixby is the Executive Director of the Southwest Environmental Center, and Dr. Brian Hurd is an economist in the Agricultural Economics Department at New Mexico State University.
Free Flow: the Gila River in New Mexico
3:00 pm to 5:00 pm Talk, Book Signing, and Photo Exhibit. FREE; no registration required. Silver City Museum, 312 W. Broadway St.
Photographer Jan Haley talks about her book Free Flow: the Gila River in New Mexico. This excerpt is from the preface to her 2008 publication: “On the way from its inception to its dry end, the Gila passes through and contributes to a dramatic array of landforms and vistas. It joins creeks with lyrical or image driven names: Sapillo, Whitewater, Rain, Little Dry, Big Dry, Mogollon. In places the river can be easily observed from the side of the highway. It can be reached from well-maintained, short trails, and with more difficulty on long hikes or backpacking treks. There are parts of the river, though, that discourage human intrusion. This river has its secrets.”
Participants are invited to view Jan’s photo exhibit, listen to the story of her quest to photograph the length of the last free-flowing river in the state, and have Jan sign a book for a keepsake. Free Flow and other books will be available for purchase at the Silver City Museum gift shop. Museum will be open extended hours 10 am - 5:00 pm. This is your last opportunity to view this exhibit at the Silver City Museum. Jan Haley, a native of New Mexico, is a photographer with a passion for wild rivers.
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