“The fact that the President,
George Bush’s first foreign
visit has our country as its
destination is a clear message
of the interest his administration
places on strengthening links
with Mexico.”
President Vicente Fox, Mexico
“We are welcoming a new day
in the relationship between
America and Mexico. Each
nation has a new President,
and a new perspective.
Geography has made us
neighbors; cooperation and
respect will make us partners.”
President George W. Bush, U.S.
The United States and Mexico share a
2,235-mile border and a long yet little
known history of wildlife conservation.
As early as 1936, wildlife managers from
both countries have reached across
the way to each other and have been
quietly conserving the wildlife and
wild places of the border region.
Story Ideas: Ocelot tracking,
birdwatching, and working with local
Mexican communities
Where: Laguna Atascosa National
Wildlife Refuge, Texas, U.S., and
Tamaulipas, Mexico
When: Early November
Contact: Dario Bard, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, 202/219 7499
A Biological Corridor
The Laguna Madre stretches 277 miles
from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Rio Soto
la Marina, Tamaulipas, with many
other communities in between. Three
decades of farming with agrochemicals
has led to soil and water contamination.
Recent industrial developments,
especially maquiladoras on the
Mexican side, have also caused
pollution. And many shrimpers are
using techniques that destroy seagrass
beds, an important wintering habitat
for waterfowl. In response,
conservationists on the U.S. side have
developed a plan to create a Laguna
Madre biological corridor from the Rio
Grande delta to the Falcon dam. This
would benefit all the wildlife in the
area, including the endangered ocelot
and the myriad of birds that make this
part of the world a favorite of birders.
Conservationists on the Mexican side
are interested in mirroring this
biological corridor. A start is being
made by a Mexican grassroots group,
the Comité Femenil para la Protección
del Medio Ambiente en Río Bravo,
Tamaulipas. Comprised of 30
Laguna Madre
A New Day…Un Nuevo Dia
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Tom Smylie
professional women, this group, with a
grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, is working to restore a slough
across the border from the Santa Ana
National Wildlife Refuge. The slough
represents the only large parcel of
undeveloped land near their
community.
Ocelots
“We trap them, take measurements,
make sure they are healthy,” says
Stephen Labuda, refuge manager at
the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife
Refuge. Using radio collars, the refuge
staff keeps track of its ocelots. This
small wildcat is recognized as
endangered by both Mexico and the
U.S. In the U.S., only 80 ocelots
remain, all of them on the Texas-side of
the Laguna Madre ecosystem. Of those,
35 are found at the Laguna Atascosa
National Wildlife Refuge. Due to the
small size of the refuge’s ocelot
population, inbreeding is a concern. To
diversify the gene pool, Labuda forged
a partnership with the Mexican State of
Tamaulipas, where ocelots are more
numerous. “How many are over there
isn’t clear,” he says, but Labuda is
offering to help Mexican biologists
conduct a survey, after which he hopes
to negotiate the transfer of some
ocelots from Mexico to the refuge.
Birds
Mark Conway, a teacher from
Harlingen High School, Texas,
volunteers at Laguna Atascosa
National Wildlife Refuge, periodically
catching and banding birds. Warblers,
orioles, tanagers, and vireos…more
than 400 species of birds can be found
in the Laguna Madre, where seagrass
beds feed nearly one million redhead
ducks—a full 80 percent of the species’
population—and also provide the best
remaining wintering habitat for the
endangered piping plover. The Texas-side
of the Laguna Madre is famous
among birdwatchers worldwide,
hosting about 700,000 binocular-toting
tourists a year. The communities of the
Rio Grande Valley benefit from these
visitors to the tune of $100 million
annually. Across the border, rancher
Jorge Martinez is proving that the
Mexican side is also a birdwatcher’s
paradise. He is welcoming birders to
his estate, El Rancho Rincon de
Anacahuitas, where the Martinez
family has practiced sustainable
ranching for generations. As a result,
the ranch is one of the most pristine
remnants of the Laguna Madre
ecosystem. Martinez hosts a steady
stream of birders, proudly regaling
them with amazing avian displays. His
success has inspired his neighbors to
consider the tourism potential of their
ranches, as well.
Fishing for Solutions
“In Mexico, sustainable development is
a top conservation priority,” says
Miguel Angel Cruz of Mexican
conservation group Pronatura Noreste.
“And in La Pesca, we are setting the
example.” La Pesca is one of the fishing
communities where Pronatura, with a
grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, is realizing success. In the
coastal communities of Mexico’s State
of Tamaulipas, many impoverished
families rely on shrimping to make a
living. But some shrimping practices,
such as dragging nets with lead sinkers
along the estuary bed, damage the
seagrasses that are vital to many of the
birds of the Laguna Madre, and also
adversely impact many aquatic species
that perish in the nets as bycatch.
Pronatura works with the shrimpers to
devise better fishing techniques, such
as net traps especially designed for
shrimp. At La Pesca, Pronatura is also
promoting ecotourism activities, such
as sport fishing and birdwatching,
which are expected to provide economic
benefits to the community. In some
cases, families are finding these
opportunities more lucrative than
shrimping and are hanging up their
nets in favor of ecotourism. Pronatura
hopes to repeat this success in the town
of Mezquital further north, where
destructive shrimping practices are
still being used and the condition of the
coastal environment stands in stark
contrast to that of La Pesca.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov
June 2001
