Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: New Mexico
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Climate change is the largest threat to ecosystem stability and the sustainability of wildlife populations. Worldwide, animals and plants are either migrating higher in elevation or northward where habitat connectivity exists or declining toward local extinction when isolated. Locally, changes in climate pose an imminent threat to game species, engendering serious ramifications for the sustainability of New Mexico’s vibrant hunting culture and associated economy. Despite the severity of this issue, there is not a clear understanding of where and when climatic changes can be expected to impact game species in New Mexico. Our project focuses on faunal relationships with habitat and projecting these relationships over time and geographical space given downscaled climate models and emission scenarios. Understanding how climate-induced shifts in ecosystem conditions will influence the future distribution of the big game species is critical to the development of long-term management plans by state and federal agencies. This project proposes to estimate resource selection and density of select big game species (e.g., elk, mule deer, oryx, pronghorn) in several study areas located in representative ecoregions of New Mexico. We plan to fit several populations of each species with GPS collars to assess resource selection as well as establish remote camera arrays to estimate density and abundance in each study area. Bioclimatic models will ultimately be used to predict changes in the distribution of major vegetation types and these data will then be combined with data on habitat selection and use, and population abundance/density to predict future distribution of the study species. The New Mexico Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is engaged in this collaborative research effort with US Fish and Wildlife Service, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, University of New Mexico, and Department of Defense.