[3] Visitors to the refuge also enjoy partaking in activities such as hiking, cycling, driving tours on the 12-mile scenic auto route, and participating in educational programs offered on site.

[5] Previously, the Piro people had lived in the lands around what is now the refuge until the 1600s, when they were forced to abandon their pueblos due to European diseases and attacks from the Apache tribes.

[7] The refuge sits within the Little San Pascual Mountain fault zone, rendering it an ideal site for conducting research on stratigraphy and sedimentology.

These flood-plains provide an essential habitat for cottonwood and honey mesquite trees, Goodding's and coyote willows, and four-wing saltbushes.

This damage disrupts the refuge's capacity to supply supplemental food to the sandhill cranes and other waterfowl species that overwinter there.

[5] The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the wetlands near the Elephant Butte and Caballo reservoirs demonstrate considerable promise for sustaining breeding bird populations over the course of the century.

In the Chihuahuan desert terrain outside of the Rio Grande riparian zone, the refuge also hosts three federally designated Wilderness areas (Chupadera, Little San Pascual, and Indian Well).

In summer the area is hot but many water birds can be found, including such New Mexico rarities as the least bittern and occasionally the little blue heron.

In addition to hosting rare bird species, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is also home to the southernmost known population of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse along the Rio Grande river.

To combat this issue, Bosque NWR has utilized various control methods over time, such as mechanical removal, herbicide application, and prescribed burning.