In southeast New Mexico, the BLM and its partners restored more than 115,000 acres of mesquite-infested grasslands in June 2008, bringing the total area of grasslands restored to 375,000 acres. This year, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish reintroduced antelope to an area south of Carlsbad that hadn’t seen pronghorns for 50 years.

In areas north and west of Las Cruces, 80,000 acres of creosote have been treated in 2008 (with another 54,000 acres to be completed this year), benefitting grassland-dependent wildlife and increasing groundwater supplies.  Restored landscapes will be used for future reintroductions of Aplomado falcons and other wildlife to southern New Mexico.

On Ladron Peak, north of Socorro, prescribed burns were conducted on 8,500 acres of thick stands of juniper this year to help desert bighorn sheep.  Healthy mosaics of woodlands and grasslands will result.  Overgrown stands of trees and brush have been reduced, removing many of the hiding places cougars used to prey on the sheep.

In the San Juan Basin, the BLM is closing and rehabilitating unneeded or redundant roads to improve habitat and reduce disturbance to deer, elk, antelope and other wildlife, and decrease erosion and runoff from roads on public lands. The BLM and its partners will also begin treating cheatgrass in the fall of 2008, testing several techniques to eradicate this exotic, non-native threat before it dominates entire landscapes as it has already done in Nevada’s Great Basin.

More than 750,000 acres of degraded landscapes have been restored to healthy ecological states thus far.