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Cactus Creek Ranch

Mary Jo Bogatto is the owner and founder of Cactus Creek Ranch, or CCR. Starting with only a few blades of grass and some local cacti in 1995, CCR currently consists of 400 acres that have been revamped into an ideal native habitat with nine man-made ponds.

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Mary Jo walks the three-mile research trail around her 400-acre property to make sure nothing’s out of the ordinary.

 

Along the trail are markers identifying red ant beds and horned lizards, which are protected on the ranch. Trail cameras document all activity on the ranch.

Bogatto said she has great respect for nature, so every animal that lives on or wanders onto the property is protected.

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Circle of Hope

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Every effort has been made to protect and preserve endangered wildlife species and to create an environment that focuses on the best that Texas has to offer. Mary Jo has made it her mission to educate the public on conservation and the importance of protecting the habitat.

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CCR NEWS

Featured in
Netflix's Birders!

Birders is a 2019 US-Mexican short documentary film directed by Otilia Portillo Padua and executive produced by Gael García Bernal. The film depicts birdwatchers on both sides of the US–Mexico border and shows how migratory birds travel back and forth across it each year.

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Crocodile

Mother Nature's Blog

Mary Jo's "Mother Nature's Blog" is a place for Mary Jo to share whatever comes to mind.  Make sure to stop in and post your comments there!

The Circle of Hope

The Circle of Hope, where education begets hope! Make sure you stop in and visit the Circle of Hope tab for information about all the research and other things that give us all something to be hopeful about!

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Keep in Touch

We'd like to be able to write to you.

Cactus Creek Ranch is 400 acres of native habitat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and the thing we lack is a way to reach the people who care about it.

Leave your details and they go on one list, held by the ranch, and used for one purpose: telling you what is happening out here.

Announcements, and not many of them.

This is a Wildlife Conservation Ranch, not a newsletter operation. What we send are announcements about things that genuinely happen here: the Spring and Fall BioBlitz and when to register, the Christmas Bird Count and what it turned up, news from Circle of Hope research, the banding days, and when visits open up and how to book one.

Multi-line address

Blank is a complete answer, and the announcements arrive the same either way. We ask because we like knowing how far this list has gotten from Rio Hondo, and because postcards go out from here in the slow season, which does not come every year.

If you have been banded at the ranch, the number stamped on your band goes here. It lets us connect you to the record. If you have no idea what this means, leave it blank.

©2026 by Cactus Creek Ranch.

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