The Rio Grande once supported over 500 species of plants and animals but many native fish species have disappeared from the river. The Rio Grande Campaign aims to restore the river's ecosystem in southern New Mexico and west Texas to support native species once again. The La Mancha Project Design creates two connected ponds and landscaping on private land to provide habitat when the river floods, helping in the effort to restore the Rio Grande.

1. Restoring the Rio Grande

3. Rio Grande:
Lifeline for over 500 vertebrate species
• 95 mammals
• 345 birds
• 95 amphibians
and reptiles
• 44 native fish
Photo: Ken Stinnett

4. Elephant Butte Dam 1916

8. The status of native fish in the Rio Grande in
southern New Mexico and west Texas:
Gone (16): Present (8):
• shovelnose • gizzard shad
sturgeon
• red shiner
• American
eel • river carpsucker
• Mexican • bluegill
tetra • mosquitofish
• speckled • flathead catfish
chub • smallmouth buffalo?
• flathead • headwater catfish?
chub
• Rio Grande
chub
• Rio Grande silvery minnow
• Rio Grande
shiner
• Rio Grande bluntnose shiner
• phantom
shiner
• roundnose

9. Rio Grande Campaign
Goal: to restore the Rio Grande in
southern New Mexico and west Yellow-billed cuckoo
Texas to a functioning ecosystem
which supports native plants and
animals
beaver
Shovelnose sturgeon
Rio Grande leopard frog

11. Picacho Wetlands
Before Now

18. La Mancha Project Design
• Two connected ponds
on 3 acres of privately
owned land
• Inlet and outlet
channels connecting
to river at high flows
• Appropriate native
plantings in floodway
and around ponds
• Trail, signs and bench

20. A Living River
Photo: Ken Stinnett