Explore 230,000 Acres Of Trails, Flora, and Fauna At New Mexico's Otherworldly Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge
By Melissa Mahoney|Published May 15, 2024
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Melissa Mahoney
Author
I'm an east coast girl living in a west coast world. I grew up in New England before moving to SoCal for several years. I then lived in NYC or a year before moving to AZ in 2009. I worked in the entertainment industry for many years of my adult life and have a deep love for photography, writing, and traveling around the U.S. as well as to far-flung locations around the world. Travel is my life and writing about it is a dream!
As one of the largest states, New Mexico has exceptional national and state parks encompassing millions of acres for us to explore. It’s also home to one of the largest national wildlife refuges in the country. Encompassing over 230,000 acres, Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge offers an array of outdoor recreation including numerous hiking trails and four different biomes ensuring a diverse population of flora and fauna.
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is one of the largest in the U.S. With over 230,000 acres, there's so much to explore throughout its vast landscapes.
Just take a drive to the community of La Joya in Socorro County to find this protected area that's overseen by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. And prepare yourself to be astounding by the diversity of wildlife and plant life found throughout.
There are actually four different biomes that attribute to then wildlife refuge's biodiversity. There's the Piñon–Juniper Woodlands, the Colorado Plateau Shrub–Steppe lands, the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Great Plains Grasslands.
Among the animals that call this place home are prairie dogs, coyotes, kangaroo rats, red-winged blackbirds, and pronghorns. As for plants, there are almost too many to mention but you may see the plains dozedaisy, mintbush lippia, and pigweed amaranth, just to name a few.
Depending on what part of the wildlife refuge you explore, you may see an old train bridge that's still in use today. With so much to do and explore, I strongly encourage you to add a trip to Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge to your list of places to visit in New Mexico!