By Ben Neary
NMWF Conservation Director
Carlos Martinez del Rio cherishes connections he sees in the natural world. A member of the board of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, he’s the featured speaker at the federation’s “Wildlife Wednesday” event on Sept. 11. The title of his talk is, “The Bat, The Bee, the Pinyon Jay and the Hunter.”
“I will use bats, bees, and pinyon jays to highlight why outdoorswomen and outdoorsmen should care about the conservation of non-game wildlife,” Martinez del Rio said.
“I will describe the interactions between three iconic plants of New Mexico with the animals that pollinate them and sow their seeds,” Martinez del Rio said. “If you care about mezcal and tequila, nopalitos, and piñones, then you must be interested in these animals and their conservation.”
A retired university professor, Martinez del Rio recently traded Wyoming’s perpetual cycle of wind and winter for the sunnier, warmer life around Silver City. Here, on the outskirts of New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness, he says he’s found his home.
“I like this place because it’s one of the few places where I think we can call it the real multicultural West,” said Martinez del Rio, a native of Mexico. “It’s a place I like a lot. I’m totally in love and taken by the Gila greater ecosystem. This is home now.”
These days, Martinez del Rio is as comfortable wrangling his mule over rocky trails in the Gila Wilderness as he was lecturing in the classrooms at the University of Wyoming. He delights in the plants and pollinators he finds in his new home country.
Agave cactus bloom only once, living for decades before sending out a tall stalk topped with blossoms and then dying. In that brief time while the cactus blossoms are alive, Martinez del Rio says the agave relies on bats to come fluttering by to pollinate their flowers.
“First I’m going to talk about bats, and how we have two species – one of which is endangered, which is the Mexican long-nosed bat, in New Mexico,” Martinez del Rio said of his presentation. “And that their role in the ecosystem is to pollinate agaves, mezcales.
“ We have to be really thankful because these plants are incredibly important,” Martinez del Rio said of the agave cactus. “They were important ecologically, and they also were important for the Apaches. That’s why they’re called ‘Mescalero’ Apaches, because they ate them. People used to say that mezcales were the buffalo for the Apaches, because they used them as a staple.”
Mezcal plants must be roasted before they can be eaten. “People who like tequila, mezcal, they ought to thank a bat, because the reproduction of agaves is exclusively shaped by the bats,” Martinez del Rio said.
The second plant/pollinator relationship that Martinez del Rio will address in his presentation is the bond between bees and prickly pears. “I will talk about how important prickly pears are ecologically and how many animals they feed, especially javelina,” Martinez del Rio said.
Third, Martinez del Rio said he intends to talk about the close association between pinyon jays and pinon trees, and how the birds’ practice of caching the seeds plays a role in the survival of the trees.
Martinez del Rio said his talk will also address the scope of the work of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, how its activities go far beyond focusing only on huntable wildlife.
Martinez del Rio’s free talk will start at 5:30 p.m., Sept. 11, at Marble Brewery’s Northeast Heights Taproom, at 9904 Montgomery, Blvd., NE, Albuquerque.