Massacre!

Massacre! Statewide there were 29 people fired from Texas Parks and Wildlife – 8 of them (28%) were from El Paso including Superintendent John Moses. From our region of Texas Parks and Wildlife (an area spanning 450 miles from Abilene to El Paso) eight people were fired. Of course, all 8 were from El Paso – our beloved Superintendent, 2 of his office staff and 5 workers at the Wyler Tramway.

Regional Director, Dierdre Hisler from Ft. Davis (over 200 miles away from El Paso) will oversee Dr. Cesar Mendez of FMSP and Ms. Wanda Olszewski at Hueco Tanks.

El Paso was once represented on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission by a political donor of some significance. El Paso is no longer represented. Want to know why the 8 firings were all from El Paso? Anyone with deep pockets want to contribute to Perry’s Presidential ambitions?

One bit of very good news: our Urban Wildlife Biologist, Lois Balin, will keep her job although it isn’t certain as of today if she will stay in her same office building.

Time to put the mountain lion incident to bed. Police Chief Greg Allen made some important changes with the notification process in such events – a change which will help put the right people on the scene, manage crowds and facilitate communication. However, the lion incident still reminds us that, especially in this drought, animals are entering “our” space more and more. Hikers are now regularly reporting deer sightings at lower elevations. Many people have argued for more water guzzlers for wildlife. Also of continuing concern is protecting wildlife corridors – something the TxDOT Transmountain plan has never addressed although they could provide plenty of overpasses for those they colluded in secret with while bypassing the public.

El Paso needs to adopt a similar plan to one in Pima County, Arizona which is committed to the long-term survival of the full spectrum of indigenous plants and animals and the conservation of its cultural resources. Learn more about the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan at their well-documented web site. El Paso’s Open Space Advisory Board does regard preserving ecologically-sensitive and riparian corridors as prime factors in choosing open space for protection. Recently OSAB recommended that Cement Lake become first on the priority list for acquisition. OSAB also recommended and City Council yesterday approved the rezoning of Keystone Park and Rio Bosque to a Natural Open Space (NOS) District and that both Keystone and Rio Bosque be designated as a Wildlife Sanctuary under the Natural Open Space (NOS) District.

Finally, because we all need to learn more about different strategies for managing water without resorting to huge retention ponds and other practices of unsustainability, read Hopi Gardens, a long but very interesting article on passive water harvesting to grow food in an arid environment. Some of the Hopi terrace gardens are visible along AZ Hwy 264 between Hotevilla and Tuba City. Landscape Architect David Cristiani of the Quercus Group reports that the gardens are “impressive for their use of gravity and passive rainwater harvesting to grow corn and other food plant varieties that mostly produce from the monsoon season and incidental winter moisture totaling [like El Paso] about 6 or so inches a year.” Cristiani adds: “Their corn varieties were selected over time for toughness to the local environment. The corn is short in stature – under 3 feet in height.” Native Seeds is a good source for seeds for this variety of corn.