New Mex­ico

• About 9.3 mil­lion of New Mexico’s 78 mil­lion acres (about 11 per­cent) are pub­lic U.S. For­est Ser­vice lands.

• Of those 9.3 mil­lion acres of U.S. For­est Ser­vice lands, about 1.6 mil­lion acres, or about 17 per­cent, are inven­to­ried road­less areas.

• About 66,000, or 0.7 per­cent of total U.S. For­est Ser­vice lands are rec­om­mended for wilder­ness designation.

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 This area has received inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion for its out­stand­ing, unique bio­log­i­cal diver­sity and rich cul­tural his­tory. Encom­pass­ing six major bio­log­i­cal provinces, it remains one of the wildest, eco­log­i­cally diverse and most unfrag­mented land­scapes in North America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The 56,500-acre Pel­on­cillo Road­less Area is part of the larger 87,986-acre Pel­on­cillo Ecosys­tem Man­age­ment Area (PEMA) that strad­dles the Arizona-New Mex­ico bor­der along the spine of the Pel­on­cillo Mountains.

Habi­tat

The diver­sity of habi­tat within the PEMA sup­ports a num­ber of threat­ened or endan­gered species – includ­ing but not lim­ited to – ele­gant tro­gan, buff-colored night­jar, south­west fly­catcher, aplo­mado fal­con, ridge-nosed rat­tlesnake, Chir­ic­ahua and low­land leop­ard frog and jaguar (a large male was pho­tographed in 1996 in the south­ern Pel­on­cil­los). There are 75 mam­mal species (more than America’s most famous mam­mal haven, Yel­low­stone park) and 318 species of birds, with 15 species of hum­ming­birds alone.

The Pel­on­cillo Road­less Area and the cor­re­spond­ing Pel­on­cillo Ecosys­tem Man­age­ment Area is under­ap­pre­ci­ated, under­stud­ied and in des­per­ate need of pro­tec­tion and stew­ard­ship to main­tain both its nat­ural and cul­tural values…

Hunt­ing

Hunt­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties abound here.  Abun­dant game species include Mearns’ quail, Gambel’s quail, scaled quail, Coues deer, javelina, mule deer, desert bighorn, bear and cougar. The range har­bors the only fully native pop­u­la­tion of Gould’s turkey in the United States. The area’s draw and untapped poten­tial from an eco­nomic stand­point is tremen­dous due to its unique bio­log­i­cal diver­sity and out­stand­ing hunt­ing resources.

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