Helping people connect to the Chihuahuan Desert
Click Here to Play the Chihuahuan Desert Dwellers Game
Mule deer, pronghorn and kit fox roam the vast grasslands of the northern desert. In the desert scrub, roadrunners scurry after earless lizards while golden eagles search among the agave and creosote for blacktailed jackrabbits. Test your Desert IQ. Click Here to Play the Chihuahuan Desert Dwellers Game
Artist Andy Dufford stands next to a wolf sculpture he created along the entrance way to the El Paso Zoo’s new Chihuahuan Desert exhibit. The sculpture is made from three blocks of Colorado sandstone each weighing about 8,000 lbs. The blocks were carved individually then stacked for final shaping.
Save the date – Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta – September 19-20, 2020
The Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition and Franklin Mountains State Park are happy to announce that this year’s Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta will be a two-day event with day one at the El Paso Zoo and day two at Franklin Mountains State Park – Tom Mays Unit. Late in 2019 the Zoo opened a $16m Chihuahuan Desert exhibit that has completely transformed the northern end of the Americas section. The all-new area serves as home to animals from one of North America’s largest deserts, and includes Mexican wolves, mountain lions, jaguars, prairie dogs, pronghorns, coati, thick-billed parrots, burrowing and screech owl, bolson tortoises, coach whip snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, and black widow spiders.
Day one of the annual Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta will introduce fiesta goers to El Paso’s big backyard and help people connect to the beautiful desert and invite them to explore the trails at Franklin Mountains State Park. On day two, visit the new Franklin Mountains State Park Visitor Center and meet park staff and local naturalists, they will lead a series of guided hikes for people of all ages.
Follow this blog by entering your email address on the lower right or join our FaceBook Group to keep up with more details on the event and other Chihuahuan Desert news.
Looking east towards the Franklin Mountains along an arroyo in Tom Mays Park, March 4, 2020. by Rick LoBello
Greetings Chihuahuan Desert Coalition friends,
Thanks for your continued interest in CDEC and for staying connected with us. Please note that we are no longer maintaining a general email list. The best way to keep up with our organization is by using the follow link at the bottom of your screen and entering your email address. You can also join our facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/shareelpaso/
If you have not looked over our top priorities below please contact us to let us know how you would like to be involved. We are a volunteer organization. We need help with social media, blogging, fund raising and someone with the passion to help educate youth to coordinate our Nature Club.
Our big three goals are: (1) Education and Outreach, (2) Volunteerism, and (3) the Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta. To help us accomplish these goals the following individuals have agreed to help.
Education and Outreach – Collaborating with the Parks Department Trailblazers program with coordination by Joe McKnight. Developing a schedule of Zoo Adventure Chihuahuan Desert workshops at the El Paso Zoo with coordination by Sarah Murphy
Volunteerism – Encouraging people to become volunteers at the Chihuahuan Desert exhibit at the El Paso Zoo and at local parks and protected areas with coordination by Rick LoBello
Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta – Increasing the conservation education impact of the annual event with coordination by Rick LoBello
Celebration – Making sure we focus on celebrating everything about the Chihuahuan Desert to help more people value this important landscape and eco-region with coordination by Diane Perez
The Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition encourages residents to landscape with native plants and create backyard habitats that will attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife. These mini habitats, when connected with other natural areas in the neighborhood, can make a real impact in helping wildlife such as birds needing trees to build their nests and butterflies needing nectar from flowers. Backyard habitats landscaped with native plants from our local Chihuahuan Desert also help the community conserve drinking water. Examples of drought tolerant plants include desert willow, yellow bells, acacia, sotol, ocotillo, and wooly butterfly bush.
Make a plan, find a local nursery –click here.
Opening Remarks by Scott Cutler of the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition at the 15th annual Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta at the Tom Mays Unit of the Franklin Mountains State Park.
September 28, 2019
Thank you all for coming to the 15th annual Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta organized by the Franklin Mountains State Park – a wonderful opportunity to learn more about our Chihuahuan Desert and local groups that help us understand and protect it.
Of equal significance, 2019 represents the 40thanniversary of the Franklin Mountains State Park’s creation. The Franklin Mountains have always been the centerpiece of our city. As the City began to spread northward around the mountains, citizens began realizing this iconic piece of El Paso might be radically changed if not protected. This concern came a reality when the owner of much of the Franklin’s bulldozed a road to the top of Mount Franklin. The community rallied together and convinced the City of El Paso and the State of Texas to produce legislation that created the Franklin Mountains State Park in 1979. This legislation preserved a large portion of the higher elevations of the Franklins and the Park has become a major destination for El Pasoans and visitors from around the world to recreate and immerse themselves in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Forty years on, it is worthwhile to see where we are with the largest urban state park in the continental United States.
Visitation continues to rise. In 2009 there were 34,996 registered Park. In 2019 that number was 71,795. That’s a doubling in visitation over the last 10 years. As amazing as those numbers are, it is known that many people enter the park and use the trails without registering their visit. It is believed the real number of people who come into the park is closer to 150,000 per year.
A new visitors center is nearing completion. This will provide an official Park entry point where visitors can ask questions and get assistance in planning their visit.
The Park now has over 100 miles of trails, providing nearly limitless opportunities to explore the many habitats and vistas within the park.
The Park and the mountains it protects are still the centerpiece of our city and a refuge for all seeking the opportunity to reconnect with nature and enjoy the healthful benefits of being outdoors, whether alone or with friends and family.
While this 40th anniversary of the Park’s founding is significant, and an important historical event, the Park will be here well into the future. So, while we are thrilled with what has happened to this point, we should also look forward to the next 40, 80, 120 years or more. What might the Park’s and, by extension, the Franklin Mountain’s future look like? Here are a few possibilities.
1. Without a doubt, park visitation will increase, perhaps doubling again in another ten years. This will strain existing park resources needed to maintain trails and roads, protect sensitive areas and provide adequate staffing. The park’s budget must increase to meet these needs. To this end, it is very important that visitors to the park register their visit. All funding decisions emanate from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) office in Austin and those decisions are based, in part, on visitation numbers. The more registered visitors, the better the budget. Perhaps the Park will come up with an app that allows people to sign in electronically from wherever they enter the park.
Another source of funding for FMSP (and other State Parks) are funds generated by the sale of hunting, fishing and camping supplies. A certain portion of the sales taxes from those purchases is supposed to go to Texas Parks and Wildlife for parks. We, as tax paying citizens, need to ensure that the Texas Legislature fulfills its duty and directs those funds to TPWD.
2. When the Texas legislature created the Park, the enabling legislation included language that would allow Castner Range (a closed firing range owned by Fort Bliss on the east side of the Franklins) to be added to the Franklin Mountains State Park. Due to concerns about unexploded ordinance, the transfer never happened. Local groups have worked hard for the past 40 years to find a way to preserve the 7,000 acres remaining. Perhaps dialog and partnerships will form between the Army, the Park and the community that will lead to this striking landscape preserved in its natural state as park land, fulfilling the original vision put forward four decades ago.
3. Over fifty years ago the City of El Paso purchased upwards of fifty square miles of land around El Paso, many thousands of those acres being part of the Franklin Mountains. Those mountain lands could provide excellent recreational opportunities for the growing city as well other no-cost environmental benefits. Maybe a partnership can be formed between the City, El Paso Water, community groups and the State Park to manage those public lands as open space. This would help conserve our water resources, reduce our City’s impact on climate change, and lower our future tax burden.
4. Volunteers will be able to play a vital role in helping the park function in the future – from manning the visitors center to leading hikes and maintaining trails. Hopefully community members will rise to this need and create a core of volunteer help that allows the park to serve its visitors while protecting the land’s resources.
The Franklin Mountains State Park is a tremendous asset for the City and its residents. It is here because people in this community, folks just like us, saw the mountain’s value being greatest as open space rather than as developments. I hope that their vision and tireless work is never forgotten. As we move towards the half century anniversary of the park and beyond, let us all remember that we, the people, have great power to make change.
Get involved. Commit a little of your time to a larger cause like protecting our mountain and the park. Only through our support, vigilance, time and effort, will the Franklin Mountains and the Franklin Mountains State Park remain the treasured centerpiece of our community forever.
One of the presentations at the Chihuahuan Desert Conference on November 7 will be entitled Borderland Jaguars – Why There Are Jaguars in Mexico, but Only a Few in the U. S. by Diana Hadley of the Northern Jaguar Project. Formed in 2003 by a small group of dedicated conservationists from the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, the Northern Jaguar Project (NJP) is a binational non-profit dedicated to protecting jaguars and their habitat. NJP is revitalizing the northernmost jaguar population by maintaining a protected core reserve and by working with ranchers, schools, and local communities to promote conservation. They are in the process of expanding, managing, and rehabilitating the Northern Jaguar Reserve to attract and safeguard breeding jaguars and the dozens of rare and sensitive species that live within its boundaries.
A schedule of presentations and posters planned for the conference will be posted on the conference website by October 1. The Pre-registration discount ends on October 1. After that registrationwill continue until October 30.
Heather Rivera, senior Education Specialist at the El Paso Zoo will present Houdini the Harris Hawk and Buckbeak the Swainson’s Hawk on the Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta Stage on Saturday, September 28. Nearly two dozen environmental groups will be on hand at the fiesta this year presenting family friendly interactive discovery opportunities about the Chihuahuan Desert.
The event is free to the public at Franklin Mountains State Park where most the activities will be held at the end of the loop road at Tom Mays Park from 9am to 3pm. See the schedule and more – click here.
Black Bears in Big Bend National Park especially relish the succulent base of Torrey yuccas and sotol plants. Photo by Rick LoBello
The El Paso Sierra Club will kick off its 2019-2020 Kevin von Finger Speakers Series at the El Paso Zoo Wildlife Amphitheater on September 24 at 7:00 pm. The illustrated lecture will be free and open to the public and will feature the story of how Mexican black bears successfully returned to the mountains of Big Bend National Park during the 1980s. It will be presented by Raymond Skiles, a wildlife biologist from Alpine, Texas.
“The natural recolonization of the black bear to Big Bend National Park from the cross border population in northern Mexico is one of the most important conservation stories in Texas,” said zoo Education Curator Rick LoBello. Earlier this year the El Paso Zoo piloted a Zoo-Park partnership with Big Bend National Park to coordinate efforts to help conserve black bears in the park after being awarded a $10,000 Winter America’s Keystone Wildlife Grant (AKW). The grant partners zoos with National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges to help America recover the wildlife legacy lost during the fur trade and westward expansion era of the United States.
The lecture series is named in honor of Kevin von Finger, a well-known El Paso naturalist and environmentalist. The El Paso Zoo will host the first lecture in this year’s new series at the Zoo’s state of the art Wildlife Amphitheater.
Raymond Skiles grew up in Langtry, Texas and recently retired from the National Park Service after over thirty years of service. While working as the park’s wildlife biologist, Skiles was at the forefront of proactive management, instituting programs to make Big Bend an exemplary “bear park.”
An important goal of the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition is to facilitate integration of learning about our desert into the school curriculum from kindergarten on. The Chihuahuan desert offers a wide variety of habitats that all have their own animal and plant communities, which again are interacting with each other in often wondrous ways that can amaze and inspire people, especially the young. Once children are exposed to the fascinating life of desert animals and plants and the challenges they have to master day in and out, they will appreciate our environment and understand why it needs protection. It is an environment that teaches us that we can master unimaginable challenges and prosper through them. The desert is an open book to explore and find adventures like nowhere else.
Learn more by checking out some of the online teaching tools available on our website. If you would like to help us expand and improve resources for teachers contact us today.
The Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta is the signature event of the Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition and Franklin Mountains State Park. Last year nearly 800 people attended and with the 15th Annual Fiesta just two months way, we could break the 1000 mark.
(See poster below)
Behind the scenes, volunteers and park staff are making arrangements for tents, chairs, a stage, entertainment, food, speakers, guided short hikes and educational booths sponsored by local nature groups. As in the past all activities will be centered at the end of the loop road at the Tom Mays Park section off of Loop 375 in West El Paso. If you want to be involved in anyway please contact us.
Over the past fourteen years thousands of El Pasoans attending the Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta at Tom Mays Park have discovered the rugged beauty of Franklin Mountains State Park. The park features hiking trails, camping and picnic sites surrounded by an undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert landscape. The 15th Annual Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta is a free community event planned for September 28th, 2019 from 9am to 3pm. Be sure to follow this blog to receive Fiesta Updates and other interesting news about our desert.
The Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition is looking for new members and membership is free. MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS include: -The good feeling of knowing that you are helping others understand and appreciate our beautiful Chihuahuan Desert
-Invitation to events including the Annual Membership Meeting, Chihuahuan Desert Fiesta, Special Programs and more.
