Ebook: Border sanctuary: the conservation legacy of the Santa Ana land grant

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge lies on the northern bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, about seventy miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. In Border Sanctuary, M.J. Morgan uncovers how 2,000 acres of rare subtropical riparian forest came to be preserved in a region otherwise dramatically altered by human habitation. The story she tells begins and ends with the efforts of the Rio Grande Nature Club to protect one of the last remaining stopovers for birds migrating north from Central and South America. In between, she reconstructs a hundred-year human and environmental history of th.;The land of Santa Ana: solving mysteries -- Saving the Santa Ana forest -- South Texas in the 1930s -- The symbolic Chachalaca -- Perceptions of the forest -- The original landscape of Santa Ana -- Environments -- Lessons of Dicliptera -- Hunter of flowing habitats: the jaguarundi -- First changers: hunters, grazers, and browsers -- New eco-travelers: the lure of resilient grasslands -- Into the forests -- The early Leal years: people of the river -- The Leals and their neighbors: families of the Mexican grants -- The trees of Santa Ana -- A house of handmade bricks -- Mounted raiders in South Texas -- The world outside comes to Santa Ana -- Hard for people, good for trees -- Horses on Santa Ana -- Jaguars and horses -- Losing and gaining Santa Ana -- The Leal fortunes -- Fire, water, and goats on Santa Ana: the Guzman dream -- The traveling armadillo -- The way of fire -- The eating of the grass: clues in the twentieth century -- Santa Ana in 1880 -- The dream of la Pechuga -- Land redefined -- Surveys, sales, and rails -- Santa Ana in the Great Depression years -- Epilogue: the future of a river and its trees.