ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – While it may be a sigh of relief seeing more water in the Rio Grande, experts tracking the river’s ecosystem said the situation is more dire than people might think. “The river has basically been dry in Albuquerque since June 4th of this year, so that’s three months of drying. And the cottonwood trees, unfortunately, require saturated soils for survival; you only see them by the rivers for a reason,” said Paul Tashjian, Director of Freshwater Conservancy, Audubon Southwest.
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You may have noticed cottonwoods and other trees around the Metro are losing their leaves prematurely. Experts said the drought is not only straining vegetation, but also the surrounding wildlife. “We’ve seen markedly less bird species and birds in the dry sections of the river, so that’s just something you would expect. And you go out there, and you walk in those dry parts, and they’re silent, and you don’t see wildlife activity,’ said Tashjina.
He said that after this particularly dry season, Albuquerque’s Bosque could look a lot different in the coming years. “We don’t know what we’re going to look like at the end of this year. You know, is it going to be a 20% dieback, is it going to be a 50% dieback? This type of thing has happened to other rivers in the Southwest….the impacts are across the board. Beavers no longer have water, and they’re hunting around looking for places. So impacts to beavers…Coyotes, and turtles, and I mean the whole ecosystem is really getting hammered in the dry parts of the river,” said Tashjian…