After a career as a zoology professor, Carlos Martinez del Rio has settled in southwestern New Mexico – a place where he can not only study nature, but revel in it as a conservationist and hunter.
Martinez del Rio is the newest member of the board of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. He recently moved to Silver City from Laramie, Wyo., where he had worked for some 25 years as a professor in zoology and physiology at the University of Wyoming.
Martinez del Rio has a special fondness for hummingbirds and other pollinators. Working in Wyoming also found him overseeing students who partnered with state and federal wildlife agencies in a cooperative research unit there. Their work addressed issues such as mule deer migration routes and how trout survive the long winters when streams turn largely to ice.
Over his career, Martinez del Rio has worked with Blair Wolf, another NMWF board member, on research projects that looked at how birds and other species survive in the Arizona desert. Wolf, who also lives in southwestern New Mexico, recruited Martinez del Rio to join the NMWF board.
Martinez del RIo grew up on a cattle ranch in northern Mexico. His first job after finishing his doctoral degree was as a professor at Princeton University. He soon left for Wyoming after finding that New Jersey doesn’t offer much wilderness.
“The land I love is the weird edge between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts and the Colorado Plateau, which is southwestern New Mexico,” Martinez del Rio said.
“Just think about it: I live in Silver City, at the edge of the world’s first established wilderness area, which is the Gila, surrounded by 2.5 million acres of national forest and two of the largest wilderness areas in the United States,” Martinez del Rio said. “I have six species of hummingbirds at the feeders and nectar-feeding bats coming in September. It’s a magnificent place to be a biologist and a hunter.”
Martinez del Rio described himself as a “natural historian,” saying his work on hummingbirds, bats and pollinators is probably best known. He said he has a particular interest in how animals process food.
“For me, habitat is a very important thing because that’s where food, water and shelter are found,” Martinez del Rio said.
Martinez del Rio said he’s been a hunter as long as he can remember, starting when his dad gave him a 20-gauge shotgun as a kid. “I killed a lot of rabbits and quail, whatever, to eat,” he said.
“In Wyoming, I started fishing, and I really, really enjoy spending time outside,” he said. “I have a passion for being a participant in the natural processes of life. I see my life not only as a scientist, but also as someone who lives and works in natural ecosystems. ”
Martinez del RIo said he’s excited now, as a member of the NMWF board, to put his experiences at the service of the citizens of New Mexico and to stand up for the wildlife and the biodiversity of the state.
Martinez del Rio said he looks forward to using his position on the board of the NMWF to work on influencing game management decisions in the state. “I”m very interested in that,” he said. “I’m interested in being the voice for science.”
He said he’s also interested in some of the societal issues now confronting New Mexico – including problems with public access to public lands and waters.
The NMWF and other conservation groups last year won a victory at the New Mexico Supreme Court that highlighted the issue of public access to rivers and streams. The court ruled in favor of the groups’ challenge to a New Mexico State Game Commission regulation that had purported to allow private landowners to get state certifications that rivers and streams across their private property were not public waters.
The court ruled in favor of the groups in finding that the game commission regulation violated a provision of the New Mexico State Constitution that specifies that all waters of the state belong to the public. The court reaffirmed that the public may use waters that cross private lands provided the public doesn’t trespass over private lands to reach the waters.
Martinez del Rio also said he is pleased with a recent federal court ruling out of Wyoming that held the public has a right to cross from one public parcel of land to another at section corners where public and private property are in a checkerboard pattern. The ruling came after hunters used a ladder to cross from one section of public land to an adjoining section without touching private lands.
“The North American Model of Game Management implies that the game is a public resource, and this is not public,” Martinez del Rio said of the longstanding practice of allowing landowners to exclude the public from crossing at section corners.
Martinez del Rio said he also fully supports the NMWF’s efforts to reform New Mexico’s system of allocating hunting licenses.
The NMWF, together with the New Mexico Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, released a report last year showing that New Mexico’s system of allocating elk licenses skews hard in favor of private interests and wealthy individuals. The groups obtained data from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish that revealed nonresidents obtained over 35 percent of the total elk licenses issued by the state in 2021. Other states in the West, including neighboring Arizona, limit nonresident hunters to a maximum of 10 percent of licenses.
Martinez del Rio said he believes New Mexico’s system of allocating elk tags is shameful. “So, as a citizen who would like to occasionally draw an elk tag, I’m very passionate about those things,” he said.
Martinez del Rio said he looks forward to working on the conservation of native fish in the Greater Gila Ecosystem. He said he’s a strong supporter of pending federal legislation to protect stretches of the Gila River and its tributaries under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
“I think one of the things that the Wildlife Federation is doing great is education, and so one of the things I’m keen on is to participate in education efforts,” Martinez del Rio said. “This is important for me because I’ve been a teacher for 40 years, or whatever, and I want to continue to do that. So I would love to contribute to education.”