Activity Report Explorer

Rio Grande Valley Broadband • Entered by Susan Ostlie on March 31, 2022

Shining River Trail Evaluation

February 12, 2022

Key Issue: Wildlife Protection
Activity Type: Stewardship (monitoring, sampling, planting, etc.)
Key Partners: Albuquerque Open Space, Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District

Short Description of Activity

Three of us met to evaluate the Shining River Trail for projects for the RGVBB this spring and summer. We also just wanted to spend a couple of hours taking a walk in the Bosque. One of the women is on the Board of Directors for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, so her expertise is useful. Here is a copy of an email I sent to the RGVBB about this trip.

Hi all you Open Space Friends, my sister and Karen Dunning and I went for a hike on the Shining River Trail on Feb. 12th. Our purpose was to asses the amount of work that might need to be done in terms of trail maintenance, invasives, trash and most importantly, how many trees need to be enclosed by chicken wire between the Paseo Bridge and the silvery minnow flooding area to the south of the trail. What we discovered was that there were many very small poles right near the bridge that still needed caging. Some of the ones we did last fall seem to have died, but most of the ones we worked on were still caged, and the cages hadn’t surprisingly been dug under by beavers. So there is still at least a day’s work to do there, depending on how many recruits we can bring. What was puzzling was how many of the larger cottonwoods in the southern part of the trail (south of the jetty jacks and power lines) either had old fencing that needed to be cut so the trees could continue growing, or had no fencing at all, and had been chewed on by some critter or other. Some of the larger trees along the road heading back to the bridge had been chewed on in one spot and then fenced to prevent further damage, but the caging was pulled up or aside in some instances. What we were wondering is how much of a priority is it to have intact fencing on the bigger cottonwoods that can continue to provide poles for new trees as time goes by, versus fencing the little poles, about 1/4 to 1/3 of which in the southern part of the trail area had died. They weren’t chewed up, they were just dead. Poor sad little poles.
The main part of the trail south of the bridge didn’t really need a lot of work, but the trail south of the powerlines and jetty jacks definitely needed work. We didn’t really look at the trash situation. Under the bridge was normally trashed, but once you got away from the bridge area, there wasn’t a lot of trash; mostly some water bottles, etc. So what Linda and I would like to know is what is the Open Space priority for the cottonwood caging. We thought taking care of the bigger trees should be a priority, but wanted to hear from you all what your scientists had in mind.
We would also like to set up a couple of work days – Sunday mornings work well for our group, so if that works for you all, let us know. We should have some weekends in April before it gets too hot, but because of some eye surgery scheduled for the 18th of March for Susan, the last two weeks of March are probably not an option – I can’t lift any weight for a couple of weeks.
Please let me know what you think…Thanks, Susan Ostlie Co-leader RGVBB – susanostlie@yahoo.com and 505-228-5666

PS: here is a link to the other photos – I can’t figure out how to separate them out and make them small enough to include in this email.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPBE_eBsvQuWZ36bQsrnfKhHIA95iKrBe0tUIv7wvFziYLVlY9NAv4kJHKSVBi0Gg/photo/AF1QipOSTLvTySBCNK9Ci7NbDxCh46jEpnEJzUOP-FbY?key=cm1xb3VsZ1ZvRkNUTWswU21BZnZOazFNeV9rdEd3
(Sorry if this link doesn’t work…) I just can’t figure out how to share individual photos, or even put them on my desktop to share.)

Reflection/Evaluation

We discovered that there were many cottonwood trees that needed caging to prevent beaver depredations. The question for the Open Space people is do they want to preserve the large older trees which can provide poles to be planted or are the small poles more of a priority? I sent out an email with photos illustrating the problems to the Open Space personnel, and then called to get a response, which I hadn’t gotten for a couple of weeks. I did contact the person, Bill Pentler, who would schedule the workdays and tasks. He will go into the Bosque to see what the best use of time and materials might be and get back to me.