Summary of the wildlife of the Valles Caldera and Jemez Mountains, by the New Mexico Audubon Society, emphasizing the birds of the Caldera.
Raptor Surveys in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Johnson, T.H. 2002, unpublished. US Geological Survey (From Caldera Action):
The large valles of the Preserve – Valle Grande, Valle San Antonio, Valle Toledo, Valle del los Posos, Valle Santa Rosa, Valle Jaramillo, and Valle Seco – provide open grassland and wetland habitat for large raptors on a scale that is unmatched elsewhere in the Jemez Mountains, and these are excellent foraging habitat for golden eagles, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons. The meandering East Fork of the Jemez River and San Antonio Creek also provide unique riparian habitat, which is foraging habitat for bald eagles and ospreys. For these reasons, daytime surveys concentrated on the valles of the Preserve. Spotted owls are generally found in mid-elevation forested canyons, and limited nocturnal surveys focused on this habitat.
Briefly, surveys revealed an astonishing concentration of bald eagles in the fall that were foraging for fish in the creeks, a high concentration of golden eagles during the summer that were foraging for prairie dogs, and some peregrine falcons that were foraging for birds. No nests of any of these species were encountered with limited searching, and no ospreys were seen, nor spotted owls heard.
Fish Species of the Valles Caldera, 2006. By the Valles Caldera National Preserve (available from VCT Preserve Scientist Bob Parmenter):
Trout: Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout [currently extinct in the Valles Caldera; reintroduction under consideration]
Minnows: Fathead Minnow, Longnose Dace, Rio Grande Chub
Suckers: Rio Grande Sucker, White Sucker [Observed in 1970’s; not present in surveys after 2000]
“Plant Gathering, Game Hunting, Fishing, Mineral Collecting, and Agriculture,” Chapter 5 from More Than a Scenic Mountain Landscape: Valles Caldera National Preserve Land Use History, by Kurt F. Anschutz and Thomas Merlan, U.S. Forest Service-Rocky Mountain Research Station (free/public domain). Includes an “ethnobotanical inventory” of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, consisting of a table of hundreds of species of flora in the Valles Caldera and their current and historic uses by people.
Elk hunting information from the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
Jemez River Watershed: Total Maximum Daily Load Valles Caldera National Preserve, Boundaries to Headwaters. New Mexico Environment Department, Surface Water Quality Bureau, Oct. 11, 2006.
Stream inventory reports of the two major Valles Caldera rivers, including fish, amphibian, reptiles, riparian vegetation, habitat characteristics, water temperatures, stream flow and land use, produced by the Santa Fe National Forest:
- East Fork of the Jemez River: Stream Inventory Report (PDF), by James Simino, Santa Fe National Forest, 2001.
- San Antonio River: Stream Inventory Report (PDF), by Damon Goodman, Santa Fe National Forest, 2001.
Map: Short Term Rangeland Monitoring in Support of Collaborative Management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (PDF), U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Jan. 2002. Map of the Caldera identifying, among other data, elk density throughout the Preserve as determined by the quantity of elk pellets observed in various regions in 2002.
Ecology of Montane Grassland Fire at the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico. By the U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Report on Rangeland Assessment and Potential Grazing Capacity for Valles Caldera National Preserve (PDF), by Kris Havstad, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Jan. 2002.
Montane Grasslands of the Valles Caldera. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America: Vol. 89, No. 2, pp. 140-142. View in PDF. View in Full Text.
Santa Fe National Forest Habitats and Wildlife (PDF), 2006. Please note: much of the subject matter discussed here does not apply specifically to the Valles Caldera. The Santa Fe National Forest extends substantially beyond the portion of the Valles Caldera not managed by the National Preserve. The Santa Fe National Forest is 1.6 million acres, compared with the Valles Caldera National Preserve’s 89,000 acres. However, the Valles Caldera is home to a significant portion of the wildlife in this document. Therefore, this document is an interesting resource to use if you want to learn more about certain wildlife and habitats that you already know are a part of the Valles Caldera.
