One Year In
It's time for our annual update!
Last December the project was only a few months old and our total number of observations was 209, with 123 species documented. Today, we sit at 1260 observations of 348 species! That includes 147 species of plant, 111 insect species, 36 birds, 15 reptiles, 14 mammals, 13 arachnids, and 10 species of fungi.
We've welcomed a new Park Manager to the Asombro Institute team, William Lukefahr (@symbioptic). William is a herpetologist by training, and has always been a naturalist at heart. His extensive knowledge of the Chihuahuan Desert stems from research experience in ecology, herpetology, and paleontology. He has a Bachelor’s in Science, majoring in Biology with a minor in Chemistry at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and a Master’s in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from the University of Texas at El Paso. He has already significantly increased our documentation of plant species on iNaturalist and will be working on many exciting Park improvement projects.
William has recently installed one of our new trail cameras, generously donated by @pfwells03, so keep an eye on the project page for the observations that will surely follow.
Asombro hosted a very well-attended event for the solar eclipse in October, welcoming many newcomers to the Park, and we will be planning 6 public events for 2024, each celebrating a particular desert animal. Follow us on Facebook for updates on those.
Finally, we would like to invite everyone to our annual Luminarias: Light Up the Desert event coming up on Friday December 8th, from 5:00 - 7:30 p.m. Join us for hot cocoa, cookies, roasted marshmallows, views of Saturn & Jupiter through a telescope, and stroll our paved ADA-accessible trail which will be lined with over 400 luminarias. The event is free and we hope to see you there.
From everyone at Asombro, we wish you all a lovely holiday season!
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