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Chihuahuan Desert
Protecting the balance of a desert
Chihuahuan Desert, Mexico
© WWF-Canon /Edward PARKER
The Chihuahuan is the largest desert in North America, stretching all the way from the southwestern United States deep into the Central Mexican Highlands.
Because of the region's high altitude - 3,000 to 5,000 feet - winters and nights are cool while summer days can reach temperatures over 100 degrees. Very little rain falls in the area, but underground springs, small streams, and the Rio Grande River provide plants and animals with precious water.
The Chihuahuan Desert's diverse habitats provide a kaleidoscope of textures and colors that shape its unique landscapes. Mule deer, pronghorn and kit fox roam the vast grasslands of the northern desert. In the desert scrub, roadrunners scurry after earless lizards while golden eagles search among the agave and creosote for blacktailed jackrabbits.
But the magnificent landscape is threatened by an ever-increasing human population, water misuse and mismanagement, overgrazing by cattle and goats, and a lack of knowledge regarding the desert's ecological importance.
WWF's vision: For the people of the Chihuahuan Desert to conserve the region’s biodiversity by recognizing, respecting and appropriately using their natural heritage.
The place. The Chihuahuan Desert covers nearly 160 million acres. Framed by the Rocky Mountains and Mexico’s Sierra Madre, it is sustained by the Rio Grande, one of the world’s most endangered rivers, known as the Río Bravo in Mexico. Rising in Colorado, the river flows 2,000 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. This great river is the heart of the region, supporting a delicate web of biodiversity.
The species. The desert is home to more than 130 species of mammals, such as the fast-running pronghorn as well as North America’s largest prairie dog colony. It contains more than 3,000 plant species, provides nesting sites and migratory habitats for over 500 bird species, and harbors 110 native freshwater fish species in its rivers.
The people. The Chihuahuan Desert, home to five million people, has long been used as a corridor for trade between Mexico City and Santa Fe, New Mexico— even before the arrival of the Spanish. Today, the North American Free Trade Agreement is fueling economic and population booms on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
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