`Jessica Rath Maybe you remember that the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Espanola had a Discovery Day on Saturday, March 11th. The Center is such a fantastic source of research and exploration in our area, and their work with injured wildlife is so much appreciated, that we wanted to follow up with a deeper look. So, we reached out to Ambassador Animal Specialist Raelynn Archuleta who kindly agreed to an interview with me. It was a pleasure to meet with a young person who is enthusiastic about her job. Clearly, Raelynn’s dedication to the animals she cares for is 100%. She grew up in El Rito and got a Bachelor's in Wildlife Fisheries Conservation Ecology from New Mexico State University’s main campus in Las Cruces. “When I graduated in 2021, I started as a volunteer here at the New Mexico Wildlife Center, mostly while I was looking for jobs. Then I decided to do the internship that was offered. After that, I got hired as part time staff and finally full time staff as this is what I really wanted to do,” she told me. “I've always been interested in wildlife, ever since I was little.” I asked her about the animals at the Center; are there any endangered species? “The walkabout path that we will visit shortly hosts our ambassador animals. They are non-releasable, mostly due to human impact, human imprints, and because of really bad injuries that they had. Some of our injury ambassador animals cannot be released because it can be fatal. Our hospital site can rehabilitate and release animals whenever that’s possible and is closed to the public. Manchado ( a Mexican Spotted Owl) came to us in 1998. He was found on a highway in the mountains of south central New Mexico, most likely hit by a car. He had a serious head injury. Then, during care, one of the rehabilitators noticed that cataracts had developed in one of his eyes from the injury, rendering him unreleasable. There are less than 2500 Mexican Spotted Owls in the United States and they are listed federally as a Threatened Species. This makes Manchado a rare and unique Ambassador Animal for his imperiled species." J.R.: What exactly is a human imprint? R.A.: Unfortunately, once a bird imprints on whoever feeds it first, this becomes irreversible. We have a couple of new human imprint animals here. People think that they're doing the right thing but actually they are doing the bad thing. When you see an injured animal, you should not talk to it or feed it. You should call the nearest wildlife rehabilitation center as soon as you can. Once an animal gets imprinted, it can’t be reversed. If you feed it from when it’s a baby, it will imprint you and think that you're its mom. It won't try and feed by itself. Because we’re humans and not birds, we can't really teach them their natural behavior like their actual mother would. J.R. That's good to point out. We tend to think we’re doing the right thing – there's a sick bird and you feel like you can help it. But that's a bad thing. R.A. That's also why there are a lot of signs, like, don't feed the wildlife. Once one person feeds it, more people are going to feed it. And that's when the animal is going to associate people with food. And that's when human and animal conflicts start happening. J.R.:Let me ask you about Dyami: How did he become an ambassador here? What is his history? R.A.: “Dyami” is Native American for “Eagle”. He came to us from Virginia in 2015, where he had fallen out of a nest as an eaglet. The previous vets who took care of him found out that he had developed cataracts at a young age. They thought it might have been a genetic thing. He also had a wing injury, probably from falling out of the nest. After several surgeries and physical therapy it was determined that his flight capabilities were permanently limited.That’s why he was deemed non-releasable. He was placed with the New Mexico Wildlife Center as an Ambassador Animal in 2017. And after he got transferred to us, after about a year and a half, he got beat up by a rat! We don’t know exactly how it happened, but the rat did some serious damage to him. He went back to the hospital, and when I started volunteering, he was doing recovery there, and that’s how we first met. When I became an intern he was released from the hospital and put into a new enclosure. I let him recuperate and settle in a bit. The previous coordinator had let me do some animal care, and she saw a connection that we had. I was soft-talking him, I had never been the “bad” person, so I started with him learning to re-trust humans. He took small baby steps, but we both learned from each other. To be able to present him on this last Discovery Day it took almost a year of trusting and bonding with him. When I was here as an intern I came at least three times a week for eight hours. When I became a seasonal worker, I was here five days a week for eight hours. Same thing with full-time, working 40 hours a week. I mostly spend an hour at a time training with him, associate him with choice base training, positive reinforcement, and to gain his trust. He is about eight years old. That’s still pretty young. Bald eagles normally don’t get their white heads until their fifth to seventh year. He’s not really “bald” – this comes from an Old English word “bala”, which means "white patch, blaze". J.R.:How old can Bald Eagles get? R.A.: Bald eagles’ lifespan in human care is 40+ years. In the wild, it is 20 – 30 years if that, because they lead a dangerous life, fighting for food and shelter, finding a mate. Also, Bald Eagles were endangered due to lead poisoning and pesticides. J.R.:What is your relationship with him? Is there a loving connection? R.A.: We don’t use the word “love”; they’re not domesticated, not like pets. It’s more like a trust-bond. He doesn’t necessarily love me but he trusts me. He recognizes me. It’s the first big animal I care for as a trainer, and we passed several milestones that have been recognized – this made me very emotional! More than him! [She chuckles]. J.R.: This must feel very special, to have a wild animal trust you – must make you feel good. R.A.: Yes, especially in our training: when he does something I know he can do, that’s really great. He does have his bad days too, when he just doesn’t want to do anything. Like today, when it’s cold and wet. So then we’ll do some positive choice base training, for example: if he comes and sits down on my glove and takes some treat from me I’ll call that a win for today. J.R.: Is the training for stimulation, to give him exercise? R.A.: Food is his main motivator, he’s a wild animal: he knows that if I do this, I’ll get a reward. We don’t use any negative reinforcement. We use LRS – Least Reinforcement Scenario. Training is also for educational purposes, and for outreach. And to get him physically moving. For if they just sit there, their health and QOL (Qhality of Life) begins to decrease. J.R.: What does he eat? None of our animals get live prey. We mimic what he would eat in the wild. Mice, voles, quails, chicks, and rabbits – cut up. But bald eagles mostly eat fish, they will steal the fish an osprey has caught! They’re scavengers too, if it’s already dead – they eat it because it saves them work. J.R.: What are your future plans? R.A.: This job is a door-opener, eventually I’d like to work with bigger exotics, but I want to get as much experience from here as I can. I envision zoos, aquariums; somewhat bigger facilities. We continued our conversation at the eagle enclosure. R.A.: His flight-ability is limited. He had a broken left wing when he was found. His high-soaring days were clearly over. He still can move and fly, he can do various hops, like a helicopter effect: he goes up and down.
Although his sight is compromised because of the cataract, his eyesight is still a lot better than a human's. Falcons and hawks have the greatest eyesight. Vultures are the kings of smell. They can smell carrion, a freshly dead animal from one to five miles in the air. We've been building up slowly for Discovery Day last weekend, just having a couple of visitors, a couple of kids. If he doesn’t want to come out, I will let him be; I won’t force him. He feels safer when there’s a barrier between him and me and the public. If I would force him to do something, that would break our trust. We use “Big Eagle” gloves: they use us as a perch, for safety precautions due to the talons. And he’s heavy – he weighs as much as a gallon of milk, so I have a stick for my arm to rest on. If I start shaking, he’d shake too, which would make him nervous. All birds of prey see colors the way humans can. Full spectrum, also some ultraviolet light. ***************** On our way back to the office, Raelynn pointed out some other ambassador animals: various falcons and hawks, owls, a vulture. They all can be “adopted” (meaning, sponsored): please visit the Wildlife Center's website if you want to connect with one of these magnificent animals! And our best wishes to Raelynn for all her future endeavors.
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Interview with Leandro and Vangie Valdez ~ Jessica Rath “Everything has changed so much since I was young! We had no cars, but horses and horse buggies. My Dad did all the farming with horses, he had no tractors.” This is what long-time Coyote resident Leandro Valdez told me when I visited him and his wife recently. I wanted to find out more about Coyote’s past, and they graciously agreed to an interview. When I entered their kitchen, I noticed a prominently placed photo on the wall: It was from Leandro’s 80th-birthday bash at the high school in Gallina, which I had attended too. Hundreds of guests were there! Leandro and his wife Vangie are the third couple from the right; the other six couples are his three daughters and three sons with their spouses. I soon learned that a lot more had changed since the time of horse-buggies. Coyote used to have a highschool – the Charles Lathrop Pack School! Arthur Pack, then-owner of Ghost Ranch, donated the funds to build the school, and he named the school in honor of his father. He sold Ghost Ranch to the Presbyterian Church in 1955 and, together with his wife Phoebe, was the original donor for the Presbyterian Hospital in Espanola. When Leandro graduated from highschool in 1956, there were lots of children attending the school, some of them were bussed from grade schools in Youngsville and Cañones. “Every Sunday we had baseball games. There was a team in Coyote, a team in Gallina, one in Cañones; and they even had rodeos in Gallina”, Vangie told me. “There used to be over 100 kids just here! Now, kids come from Lindrith, Cañones, Youngsville, etc. to go to the high school in Gallina, but altogether there are less than one hundred. People don’t want to have kids any more. Plus, people moved away because there’s no work here.” Before, people were working for the lumber companies, and there was lots of logging in this area. There used to be a lumber mill in Gallina, and another one between Coyote and Youngsville; a lot of people would go to work there. “When I went to school in Gallina, there were lots of students – black students, white students. The parents would move to Gallina from all over the States, there was so much work because of the lumber mills”, Vangie said. Also, there were six stores in the area, not counting the two in Youngsville. Two in Coyote, two in Arroyo del Agua, two in Mesa Poleo. And across from the post office there used to be a restaurant. I asked Leandro why the work stopped: “Because of environmental protection – there were endangered species such as the spotted owl and salamanders, things like that. So they stopped the Forest Service from cutting timber. Now, they can cut only a small amount, to thin the forest out. At that time, the lumber industry, the Forest Service, and the schools were the main employers here.” Leandro worked for the Forest Service some 25 years, until he retired. Before that, he also worked in the logging industry for several years. And before that, after he graduated from highschool, he joined the military and was sent to Korea. The US Army was stationed there to protect South Korea and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He was 17 years old and stayed for ten months. A tragic accident which killed his brother who was 15 at the time forced him to get a hardship discharge and return home. His brother went on a school picnic at the Chama River near where the dam is now (which hadn’t been built yet). The river was about 12 feet below the road; the river itself was about 4 feet deep but had risen all the way to the road – 16 feet deep. The bus went around a corner, and the road had already been swept away – his brother drowned. Leandro returned to Coyote in 1958 and finished his tour with the military as a National Guard, even after he and Vangie got married in 1961; every summer he had to go for several weeks. He started working for the Forest Service, and he learned to work the pumper unit; there was no Fire Department in Coyote yet. He had a crew of fire fighters, and they would travel all over the US for the Forest Service, wherever there were fires. Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky – he was the crew boss. In 1974 he became Fire Manager Officer, because he had experience with the administrative part. He had taken a correspondence course about computers; that helped him when he worked for the Forest Service. “At first, they said: we won’t have any computers here! But two years later, they had them” Leandro told me. Everybody had to learn for themselves how to operate them. The correspondence course helped him. I was curious to know how the two had met! It happened at a wedding dance in Gallina; Leandro and Vangie’s brother had already been close friends. Leandro asked her for a dance, and after that, they knew they’d be together. Vangie said that her Mom was very strict; for example, when Leandro wanted to take her to a drive-in movie in Regina, she was allowed to go only if her brother would come along too – as chaperone. Yes, there was a drive-in movie theater in Regina! There used to be a lot of entertainment here! After many people moved away, the stores would close, one after another. The store across from the post office (the only store that was still open when I moved here in 2009) used to have a laundromat. But then people bought their own washers and dryers; people didn’t use the laundromat any more and this store also closed eventually. Recently somebody bought the store again. But to make the gas station work would require a lot of money – new tanks and new pumps, because what’s there is outdated. If it would be a 24-hours gas station, it may work. Right now, people have to drive to Abiquiú or to Regina to buy gas. It may be convenient to be able to get gas in Coyote; however, if it’s a lot more expensive, people might think twice. In 2001, the New Mexico Magazine published a lovely article about Leandro and his way of life, written by Alice McSweeney. I didn’t ask how she knew about him, we had already chatted for almost two hours. But there’s no question that he and Vangie can look back at a rich, fascinating, fulfilled life. I’m glad that their memories and the history of this region is being preserved in different ways.
~Jessica Rath Compared to Coyote, Abiquiu is a veritable hub of commerce and entertainment: several restaurants, several stores, a hotel, an elementary school, a gas station. Coyote has none of that. Not any more. It does have a post office, a clinic, and a volunteer fire station, plus the Coyote Ranger District – the northernmost district of the Santa Fe National Forest, covering 261,100 acres. If you love the outdoors, the diversity of the area around Coyote is pure delight: it boasts lush, alpine woodlands, pastoral mesas, and dark-red colored canyons and cliffs that are the signature signs of the region. And the ground is covered with treasures, too. The sides of almost every dirt road here is strewn with pieces of agate, which are of volcanic origin and are part of a supervolcano that last erupted 1.2 million and 1.6 million years ago and is now known as the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The last eruption and collapse piled up 150 cubic miles of rock and blasted ash as far away as Iowa. Near Gallina, and also on the way to the Pedernal near Youngsville, one can find quite large chunks of alabaster, a soft mineral which is a variety of gypsum and can be carved like soapstone. When I cross the meadow in front of my house and climb up to the mesa on the opposite side, I cross an area with lots of pieces of petrified wood. They’re nowhere as spectacular as those in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, but for being right at my front door they’re quite impressive. I wanted some input from a local voice, and Coyote resident Pete Garcia kindly agreed to chat with me. Pete will be 89 years old this coming March – maybe being active all his life kept him young, because I would have easily taken him to be ten years younger. He was born in Coyote, at his grandmother’s house – the abuelas commonly took care of the kids. Pete has two sisters and two brothers, five sons (one set of twins) and one daughter, and eight grandchildren. I asked Pete why the village was called “Coyote” – I figured, since the animals are so ubiquitous there might be a special reason for the name. Wrong; they’re everywhere here, that’s why the hamlet has its name. In Gallina, everybody had chickens. Youngsville was different, Pete told me: an Anglo named Jack Young opened a general store in the town which was then called El Rito, and he also established a post office. This was about 100 years ago. Pete’s grandparents were also born in Coyote, but he doesn’t remember them. He barely remembers his dad, he was eight years old when his father died. His mother lived until he got married. “ I moved to Utah when I got married, I was working in a mine there for two years. And then I was in the service for four years, in Germany – I was stationed in Hanau, near Frankfurt. This was the biggest city I visited while in Germany". Pete went to school in Coyote, except for one year, the 5th grade, when he went to school in Espanola. At that time, the school was across from the church, on what was then the main road. Eventually some people also lived in the school, and then it burned down. A new school, an adobe building, was built near the site of the current school. But this new school closed because there were not enough kids. The High School is in Gallina. When Pete graduated, there were only three students in his grade. There were more students in the class, but they were lower grades, all in the same room. Still, there were more people in Coyote at that time than there are now. People gradually moved away from Coyote when the Lab in Los Alamos opened, because they were able to find work at the Lab. They would move wherever they could find employment. In Coyote there just were not enough opportunities to make a living. Pete’s in-laws lived in Canones, they had a lot of cows. In the fall they sold the calves, but that didn’t bring very much money. The last store in Coyote closed a few years ago. People moved away, there just weren’t enough customers. Pete drove the school bus for a few years, and the children used to stop at the store to buy candy. They built a great new school in Coyote, but there were not enough kids, so the school closed. Then Pete worked at the Ranger Station for about 25 years and retired from there. His kids started in school in Coyote, and then continued in Gallina. The old school, the one near the church, was founded in 1944. The new one was open only for a few years. In the last year before the school closed there were only about seven kids who attended. Another indicator for the dwindling population is church attendance: Pete said that years ago there were many people in church every Sunday. Now – only a few. Arroyo del Agua also had a school house. There was no post office, but they had two stores, one of them was selling gas as well. And there used to be a garage where they fixed cars. After crossing the bridge, the first house on the right used to be a store, for a long time. And another small store was a bit further, when one turned left. Pete sold all his cows recently. He had cows all his life, he had his own cattle brand. He never had very many, only about 30. But it has become too much work. One of his kids still has 30 or 40 cows. They still have a ranch and 160 acres up in the forest. I asked Pete whether he feels sad that his village’s population keeps shrinking, but this doesn’t bother him all that much; it is what it is. Losing friends or relatives is always hard, whether they die or move away. But life goes on. And that’s my impression of Coyote too: there’s a sense of timelessness here, things change, but deep down it all remains the same. Like a steadily flowing river. Maybe that’s what inner peace is all about.
We caught up with Ralph Vigil and asked him to tell us one of his favorite camping stories. It still makes him chuckle when he thinks about the time when he was about 12 years old and he went up into Santa Clara Canyon with his older brother Gilbert and two friends, Simon and Eloy. In those days anyone could go up into the Canyon but there were probably more bears than humans who did. Perhaps people held what they owned with a looser hand because there were fewer boundaries and nobody cared if 4 kids decided to go camping on their land. Ralph and his fellow adventurers liked to go high into the mountains and stay by the beaver dam at the river. They spent their days messing around and at night they would tell ghost stories. Since they didn’t have fishing poles they would dam the river with rocks so they could catch fish with their hands.
Ralph’s mother was widowed and she had 7 kids to feed so money was tight. The family wasn’t the only one struggling; many people in Rio Arriba county were poor. To earn money for their camping adventures, Ralph would collect cans and bottles for the deposit. He admits that he used to go behind the Granada Hotel and get bottles that had already been refunded and go return them at the Baragain. He used the money to buy cans of Pork and Beans and Vienna Sausages. Although Napoleon is no longer with us, this year marking the fifth year since his passing we have been given permission to reprint this article from New Mexico Magazine. Enjoy If you’ve got any questions about the past eight decades of life in Abiquiú, this is the man to see. by David Pike Napoleón Garcia has a loud voice and a cowbell, and he’s not afraid to use them. In fact, you’re more likely to hear Napoleón before you ever see him. He’s the man in the house on the corner of the plaza in Abiquiú, the house with the blue railing and the green door, the one with the sandwich board sign out front reading TOURIST INFORMATION. From his porch, Napoleón looks out over the plaza, and if he sees tourists, he’ll call out to them or ring his cowbell to get their attention. Then he invites them onto his enclosed porch, where he talks about the history of Abiquiú, about the traditions and the feast days celebrated here, about the distinctive cultural identity of the Genízaros, about the work he did as a young man for Georgia O’Keeffe, about the time he met Charo, and anything else that comes up.
We sat down with Isabel Trujillo in her cozy home on Valentine’s Day. To say that Isabel is still beautiful in her 80’s is an understatement. Isabel is radiant. Her quick smile and warm eyes immediately put you at ease. Perhaps because it was the day of love, her thoughts went to how she and her husband Henry met. She shared some memories of coming of age in Espanola.
When you don’t have a car and you need to get somewhere fast, you run. That’s what Ernest Victor Romero did when his wife Ernestine Montoya was is labor; He ran from Guachupangue to Espanola to get Dr. Nesbit to come and deliver little Isabel. She grew up an only child playing happily within her large extended family. |
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