New Mexico Wildlife magazine Conserving New Mexico's Wildlife for Future Generations
As of 9/14/21: All roadrunner license plates previously available through NMDGF with a number less than 100 have been requested and sent to those who requested them. Use the MVD form for the Wildlife Artwork license plate (URL provided below) to request a license plate with a randomly assigned number greater than 100 directly from MVD.
Wildlife have countless conservation needs and informational gaps that the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish’s Share with Wildlife program helps to fill by getting research, habitat and education projects on the ground and supporting important wildlife rehabilitation efforts.
The program relies upon donations, primarily through purchasing one of the four kinds of Share with Wildlife license plates now available. Last fall, the newest addition, a license plate sporting our state bird, the roadrunner, was released by the Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) of New Mexico.
These plates can be purchased directly from the MVD using this form -http://realfile.tax.newmexico.gov/mvd10092.pdf (but you won’t be able to pick your number, you’ll just get the next number in the series).
What sorts of projects will the registration of your new license plate support? The Share with Wildlife program annually funds many projects and organizations. For 2021, this includes the non-profit New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española, where sick and injured animals receive veterinary care, treatment and rehabilitation before being released back into the wild. In addition to their rehabilitation work, the Center’s education staff is working on a new environmental education curriculum centered on creating and monitoring pollinator-friendly plant gardens with schools in northern New Mexico.
The program also funds research, including data collection on the population of pinyon jays in the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico. In this area, comprehensive pinyon jay surveys have not yet been completed, but may house a stable or growing pinyon jay population.
Also funded in 2021 is a project to study the movements of a species of salamander found only in mountain ranges in southeastern New Mexico and determine what environmental conditions trigger the species to move above versus below ground. This project will inform guidelines for how best to survey for and avoid impacts to this species from land management practices implemented within its geographic range.
“People who contribute to the Share with Wildlife program make all these wildlife projects possible; their support is essential,” said Dr. Ginny Seamster, the Department’s Share with Wildlife program coordinator. Donations to the program are matched by federal dollars to maximize the effort. More than $1.9 million has gone to research, habitat enhancement, education and rehabilitation projects in the past ten years. Many of those projects benefit nongame species in need of conservation—all donations fund projects, not program administration.
Please visit the Department’s Share with Wildlife webpage for more information or contact Seamster at (505) 629-7738 or virginia.seamster@state.nm.us.
