SALINEÑO, Texas (Border Report) — Lois Hughes and Merle Ihne sit on a long cedar bench with a plaque dedicated to their many years of service watching over the Salineño Wildlife Preserve located in this remote South Texas borderland.
Hughes is usually talkative and smiley and hard to get to sit still.
But on Monday, she was retrospective and quiet and a bit teary-eyed as she and Ihne, her longtime partner, talked about retiring this week after 15 winters as caretakers of this 2.6-acre preserve.
“I don’t think we would have wanted to do anything else. That period of time between when you retire but you still have a lot of energy and ambition. And when you get to the point where you realize it’s time to pass the torch on to younger people,” Hughes said.
Lois Hughes and Merle Ihne sit Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, on a cedar bench dedicated to their 15 years of service at the Salineño Wildlife Preserve in Starr County, Texas. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report)
Hughes, 80, is a retired vet tech, and Ihne is 82 and a retired biology professor.
Since 2009, they have cut encroaching wild grasses, mulched trails, and supplied daily bird food to the dozens of rare species that draw visitors from all over the world to this remote spot.
But the work is physical and Hughes says after an hour of gardening, her shoulder aches for days and they knew it was time to move on.
The new caretakers are Cate and Bob Bowman, 69, from Maine.
Cate is a retired elementary school teacher and Bob is a conservationist who used to offer whaling tours in the Northeast. He says he became a birder because, oftentimes, he’d be waiting for whales to surface and so he got to know fun facts about feathered friends to entertain the participants.
“A lot of times when you are studying whales they spend most of their time underwater so there’s nothing up but birds. So you go bird watching while you’re waiting for the whales to come up,” he told Border Report.
On Monday morning, there were a dozen visitors at the preserve along the Rio Grande in far western Starr County.
Bob yelled out the names of various species of orioles and woodpeckers, kiskadees and warblers as they landed on the branches of trees.
Visitors filmed with cellphones, looked through binoculars and just enjoyed the various songs and sounds of so many songbirds fluttering about.
Most birds came for a peanutty mixture of meal and seeds that Bob spread on trees to draw them in.
Orange halves also hung from tree branches and plenty of water also helped to ensure nonstop fluttering entertainment.
Hughes and Ihne stood quietly in the back of the crowd and watched as the new caretakers took over and learned the ropes.
They are moving to volunteer at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, Texas, later this week, and looked back on their years spent here fondly.
Two giant books are filled with visitors who have come from all 50 states and 42 countries during their tenure.
The new crew is digitizing the books to ensure the material is never lost.
They also are putting up new signs, creating more trails and have put in a picnic area overlooking the vista of the Rio Grande and Mexico.
“The No. 1 focus of Salineño is the birds. People come to sit and watch But we’re giving them areas to walk, more trails. More places to sit and have a picnic. More places to enjoy the river,” Cate told Border Report.
She quickly added how grateful they are to Hughes and Ihne and said, “We’re learning as we go.”
Cate and Bob are avid birders who frequented Falcon State Park, a few miles away, most winters, and always came to visit Salineño. In fact, Hughes suggested they apply for the position and take over the helm.
Visitors to Salineño Wildlife Preserve record video from chairs and use binoculars on Monday, Feb. 12 as exotic birds come to nest and eat from trees. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report Photos)
Now their RV is parked at the refuge and Cate is building rock ponds for toads, clearing out more sections of encroaching grasses, and they have even started a Friends of Salineño Facebook page.
Hughes says the changes are wonderful improvements. But she hopes the new caretakers will also continue to fight any future border wall construction that could threaten the preserve.
Hughes and Ihne had avidly fought border wall construction during the Trump administration.
“The wall would have gone through here and totally wiped it out,” Hughes said. “It would have devastated this area.”
Hughes says during all the years they lived there they were never scared and “never saw migrants coming across. Not once.”
Lois Hughes looks for birds on the Rio Grande overlooking Tamaulipas, Mexico, on Feb. 12, 2024. She will now be a volunteer caretaker at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, Texas. (Sandra Sanchez/Border Report)
Twenty miles of new federal border wall are being built in Starr County, but federal officials tell Border Report that Salineño Wildlife Preserve will be spared — although construction is slated to be north of the refuge, and directly south of it.
Federal officials say a wall is needed in western Starr County because it is a high-traffic area for illegal immigration and illegal drugs from Mexico.
A few miles downriver, state officials have cleared Fronton Island, and Gov. Greg Abbott has said the area is where drugs are heavily trafficked.
This area started as a little RV park in the 70s that drew birders — mostly retirees from up North — in the winters. In 1984, a couple of birders from Michigan bought the land, which was large enough for up to eight trailers, and they rented out the other spaces to other birders. But in 2007, they gifted the land to the nonprofit Valley Land Fund, which has since hired volunteers, like Hughes and Ihne, to keep up the site every winter.
Now the Bowmans say they plan to see through the birding season, which ends in mid-March.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.
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