Cuatro Ciénegas · Coahuila, México
Cuatro Ciénegas, in the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico, is a mosaic of wetlands, grasslands, and scrubland fed by hundreds of springs — one of the most singular ecosystems on the planet.
Until 70 million years ago, an inland sea stretched across North America. Cuatro Ciénegas is a living vestige of those ancient marine waters: upon that legacy, life evolved in isolation under extreme conditions.
The result is one of the greatest concentrations of endemic species on the planet: more than 70 species of fish, snails, turtles, crustaceans, and plants found nowhere else, along with living stromatolites and bacterial communities descended directly from those marine lineages. That is why it is known as ‘the Mexican Galápagos.’
In 2025 we opened the gates of the El Santuario reserve to a founding herd of 47 American bison, in alliance with the N'dee/N'nee/Ndé (Apache) Nation, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature (FMCN), Cuenca Los Ojos, and the Museo del Desierto.
In the spring of 2026, the first calves in more than a century were born on this land. With the bison's return, the ecosystem is waking up: the grasses are coming back, and species never recorded in the reserve are here again — puma, bobcat, and javelina now share this land with black bear, mule deer, white-tailed deer, the kit fox, and dozens of species of birds and reptiles.
“The bison is a true engineer of the landscape: it shapes the land with its presence and its behavior, restoring key ecosystem processes.” — Gerardo Ruiz Smith, Director (translated from Spanish)
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