The Rio Grande

1. Restoring the Rio Grande

3. Rio Grande:
Lifeline for over 500 vertebrate species
• 95 mammals
• 345 birds
• 95 amphibians
and reptiles
• 44 native fish
Photo: Ken Stinnett

4. Elephant Butte Dam 1916

8. The status of native fish in the Rio Grande in
southern New Mexico and west Texas:
Gone (16): Present (8):
• shovelnose • gizzard shad
sturgeon
• red shiner
• American
eel • river carpsucker
• Mexican • bluegill
tetra • mosquitofish
• speckled • flathead catfish
chub • smallmouth buffalo?
• flathead • headwater catfish?
chub
• Rio Grande
chub
• Rio Grande silvery minnow
• Rio Grande
shiner
• Rio Grande bluntnose shiner
• phantom
shiner
• roundnose

9. Rio Grande Campaign
Goal: to restore the Rio Grande in
southern New Mexico and west Yellow-billed cuckoo
Texas to a functioning ecosystem
which supports native plants and
animals
beaver
Shovelnose sturgeon
Rio Grande leopard frog

11. Picacho Wetlands
Before Now

18. La Mancha Project Design
• Two connected ponds
on 3 acres of privately
owned land
• Inlet and outlet
channels connecting
to river at high flows
• Appropriate native
plantings in floodway
and around ponds
• Trail, signs and bench

20. A Living River
Photo: Ken Stinnett