{
"type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [ { "type": "Feature", "properties": { }, "geometry": { "type": "Point", "coordinates": [ -105.61109483242036, 32.25800317144848 ] } }, { "type": "Feature", "properties": { "fill": "#ff0000","fill-opacity": 0.3,"stroke-width": 0}, "geometry": { "type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [ [ [ -106.16900905966762, 32.01494886062461 ], [ -105.99048122763634, 32.28934093797388 ], [ -105.85315212607387, 32.542069321808675 ], [ -105.16650661826134, 32.542069321808675 ], [ -105.02368435263637, 32.29862787811796 ], [ -105.01269802451134, 32.010291034575964 ], [ -105.01269802451134, 32.01494886062461 ], [ -106.16900905966762, 32.01494886062461 ] ] ] } } ] } Otero Mesa is a plateau in the Trans-Pecos. The plateau extends north from Hudspeth County, Texas into Otero County, New Mexico. Otero Mesa is the dominant landform in Hudspeth County, composing 70% of its land area. Otero Mesa has a more limited extant in Otero County, NM. Overall, 2/3 of Otero Mesa are in Texas, but the colloquial usage of "Otero Mesa" is restricted to the component of the plateau in New Mexico. This is only a political distinction; Otero Mesa is physiographically continuous across the NM-TX state line.
In the center of Otero Mesa, the plateau is interrupted by the Cornudas Mountains, a cluster of buttes that jut almost 2,000' above the plateau. The Cornudas Mountains include Wind Mountain, the highest point on Otero Mesa at 7,282'. The range is peppered with thousands of petroglyphs, complementing the well-known Hueco Tanks site farther west.
Otero Mesa is the northernmost part of the Chihuahuan Desert at its longitude. While the Chihuahuan Desert extends another 200 miles north along the Pecos and Rio Grande River Valleys, the high backslopes of the Sacramento, White, and Manzano Mountains between the basins are too mesic to support Chihuahuan Desert vegetative sites. These areas are instead classified as Southwestern Tablelands.
Grassland is the predominant landcover on Otero Mesa. These semi-arid grasslands are a remnant of a much larger network of Chihuahuan Desert steppes that carpeted uplands and bajadas 150 years ago. Overgrazing and fire suppression has degraded large swaths of this ecoregion into scrubland. Consequently, conservation organizations have recognized Otero Mesa as a significant ecosystem deserving protection.
In Texas, Otero Mesa is divided into private ranches. North of the state line, Otero Mesa is a patchwork of Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico State Land Office, and private lands. Livestock grazing is the primary land use here as well, but most of it is authorized under federal and state permits. Extensive federal ownership makes this area easier to protect; thus, for the sake of expediency, conservationists have defined "Otero Mesa" as the part of Otero Mesa in New Mexico.
McGregor Range, a U.S. Army installation, includes approximately 300,000 acres of withdrawn BLM land on Otero Mesa. Livestock grazing is allowed on most of this acreage, but a Fort Bliss Training Complex (FBTC) Recreational Access Permit is still required to visit the range when it is not in use.
Ecology
Before the introduction of domesticated livestock in the late 19th century, virgin grassland carpeted Otero Mesa. It was far from homogeneous, however: differences in soil composition, climate, and surface runoff created a patchwork of unique plant communities, or ecological sites. Specifically, "[a]n ecological site is defined as a distinctive kind of land with specific soil and physical characteristics that differ from other kinds of land in its ability to produce a distinctive kind and amount of vegetation and its ability to respond similarly to management actions and natural disturbances." Scrublands on Otero Mesa are not considered unique ecological sites. Instead, they are classified as degraded states of other ecological sites whose historic climax plant communities (HCPCs) were grassland. Black grama, blue grama, tobosa, alkali sacaton, vine mesquite, bush muhly, and dropseeds were the dominant species in these HCPCs; the dominant species in non-riparian, degraded flatland ecological sites are now creosote bush and honey mesquite.