On Saturday, March 21, the Gutiérrez-Hubbell House put on their annual Backyard Refuge Day fair in tandem with Bernalillo County where at least 20 organizations and groups came together with one common goal in mind: Make Albuquerque a safer place for pollinators.
New Mexico is home to around 1,000 of the 3,600 bee species native to the U.S. and over 300 species of butterflies, according to New Mexico Soil Working Group.As bee populations worldwide dwindle, the event sought to bring attention to strategies for taking care of and nurturing environments in our backyards for not only the bees, but also butterflies, bats and hummingbirds.
Attendees visited booths and were encouraged to collect stamps in a backyard refuge passport. After collecting six stamps from six different booths, visitors were gifted a New Mexico plant to encourage pollinator visits and a healthy local ecosystem.
Albuquerque BioPark’s booth included a brief exhibit on the different types of bats that live in New Mexico. As a state with 22 species of bats, it’s important to recognize what they do for the state’s nature and plant diversity, BioPark representative Susan Magee said.
“Some like to pollinate agave,” Magee said. “And those are my favorite because they’re why we have tequila.”
Among the booths was Audubon, an organization dedicated to the research of birds globally with a focus on the Southwest. Staffing the booth was Kanah Waltman, their outreach educator, who informed people of the weekly Saturday bird walks hosted just south of Santa Fe at their sanctuary.
Audubon urged people to put up bird and hummingbird feeders in their yards to help protect the creatures from our rapidly changing temperature.
“The hummingbirds are out in Santa Fe a month early, but not a lot of the flowers have bloomed,” Waltman said. “It’s getting warm too early and the flowers are yet to bloom but the hummingbirds are already out.”
At the event, the Bird Alliance of Central New Mexico promoted keeping cats indoors and away from birds.
“Cats are responsible for killing a lot of birds,” cat enthusiast and Bird Alliance of Central New Mexico representative Connie Jo Baca said. “It’s okay if they just wander around your yard with supervision, but once they cross peoples’ fences and explore, it’s not only illegal, but detrimental to our native bird populations.”
They held a raffle, with the winner receiving an outdoor cat enclosure — known as a catio — in order to encourage responsible outside time for cats.
Albuquerque’s Water Utility Authority was in attendance as well, with their booth promoting their “treebates,” encouraging homeowners and renters to turn grass lawns into desert friendly plant-scapes. Water Conservation Specialist Cody Louscher said native lawns help the planet.
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“Every square foot turned into native plants becomes a $3 credit to your water bill. We’ve had clients not pay for four years because they transformed their 2,500 square foot lawn into a native plant-scape,” Louscher said.
Camillo Cretara is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @DailyLobo
