European Bison versus Wolves

It's a long way from the Southern Rockies, but this video fits the June 20 theme of "predators and fawns/calves." 

A friend in Poland sent the video's link to the news site Notes from Poland. The European bison, sometimes called "wisent" (similar to ours but taller and slimmer) was extirpated by over-hunting. Its population has recovered in a few places due to re-introduction from captive herds. 

The largest population is in Poland's Białowieża Forest, one of the last examples of Eastern European old-growth forest. It was saved over the centuries mainly by being a royal hunting preserve. It is known for wildlife but is also the site of disputes over logging vs. preservation.

You can see wolves harassing the bison — they mainly are interested in the two calves, which they keep trying to cut off from the adults. As wolves do.

Hungry Bears and Fawns

The suspect makes his first pre-dawn appearance.

 

My "neighborhood" is a little too rural for apps like Nextdoor, but we do have a text-message network. It lit up a few days ago when a young (I'd say yearling) black bear started doing the equivalent of squeezing the door handles of all the parked cars.

Before long he (?) was spotted at this house and that. Over the next few days he knocked over wheelie bins (that should have been indoors), got into some smelly fertilizer, and committed other mischief.

We are in a drought. Spring fruit like wild plums and chokecherries basically did not happen.  The days are hot with a series of Red Flag fire warnings. (My volunteer department rolled out on one small wildlife fire on the 17th.) 

No doubt the little bear is hungry. 

He appeared behind our house during when I was away on the fire. His scent must have drifted in, because M. said that Marco the Chesapeake Bay retriever jumped up barking and ran for the back door, where she looked out and saw the bear up on the trees.

Another neighbor posted said the bear checked out his propane grill. Elsewhere, the yearling broke into a shed where some livestock feed was stored. The shed's owner has now added an electric fence and placed an elected "unwelcome mat" at the door. 

I  got up  Friday to find that someone had dug up up soil in an outdoor planter, knocking two tomato cages and the Walls o' Water that they support onto the ground. Luckily the plants survived. 

The local game warden came around and gave another neighbor a bag of the non-lethal rubber-ball 12 gauge shotgun shells. They pass those out like candy.

The recipient rode around on his side-by-side distributing them, so I have a couple placed at hand. It's never come to that in the past, probably won't this time either, but there they are.

All this past winter, a mule deer doe (last seen visibly pregnant) and her yearling offspring hung out in the oak brush close to our house. 

All around, fawns should be dropping now.  And although black bears do not hunt prey the way that mountain lions do, they like fresh fawn.

There used to be a buffalo ranch about ten miles from here, and the owner once told me that during calving, black bears would come off the mountain to hunt the calves. You would think that Mama Buffalo would be a formidable opponent but apparently the bears get though some times.

(In Yellowstone, a grizzly bear recently nabbed an elk calf in front of an assembly of tourists. 

[Wildlife researcher John Winnie, Jr.] wasn’t there when the grizzly first found that calf, but said one of his students witnessed the moment. The bear’s head suddenly snapped in the calf’s direction right before she moved in and found the helpless young elk.

That probably means Storm [the grizzly] heard the calf rustling in the grass, or caught a glimpse of it moving, Winnie said.

Once Storm started eating, it was hard to watch, he said.

The calf cried out as it was being devoured, but no other elk heard it.

“The nearest cow elk we saw were probably out of earshot, 400 to 500 yards away,” Winnie said.

In Yellowstone, spring calving produces about 80 calves per 100 cow elk, he said. but “by the time the first of the next year rolls around in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we’re down to around 20 to 25 calves per 100 cows. And most of the calves that were lost were lost to predation."

 Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, which is devoted to whitetail deer-hunting, posted on X (formerly Twitter) a scout camera video from John Lockburner Jr. (Sussex County, N.J.) of a black bear taking a whitetail fawn. The post said, " According to scientific research by John J. Ozoga in Michigan, yearling black bears can reduce fawn survival by as much as 22% annually."

You can hear the fawn bawling. 

 So in this drought year, will this yearling bear get a taste for fawn?

Can a Bull Snake Be a Show Snake?

A week ago, Marco the Chessie and I were walking up a pedestrian-bike trail that goes trough "open space" by the Walking Stock golf course in northeast Pueblo.

Suddenly he jumped sideways. I looked down and back — this bull snake was artistically coiled next to the wall that separates one of the adjacent upscale houses from the public path.

Not a bad homestead for a snake—a secure den under the masonry wall, just a short slither away from rodent-hunting grounds. 

The snake tired of being photographed and false-struck at me. No danger; it was just annoyed. "OK, buddy," I said, "I'll leave you be."

What was interesting that this particular bull snake did not vibrate its tail to mimic a rattlesnake. A lot of them do that, and then humans start grabbing guns and shovels: "It's a rattlesnake! Kill it!" 

Is the gene pool changing? Marco started out to be a show dog, but washed out. He still strikes poses. So did this snake. Very artistic fellow.

Low Flows Threaten Arkansas River Rafting. Guess Who Benefits

Paddleboarders on the Arkansas (Colorado Parks & Wildlife)

Today's Colorado Sun reports that the low snowpack -- 24 percent for the Arkansas River basin -- means low runoff and a shorter season for the rafting companies:

There are about 45 river outfitters in the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area between Leadville and Cañon City who host as many as 250,000  commercial rafting visitors every year, almost 75% of them coming from out of state. Those vacationers riding the most rafted river in the country direct anywhere from $50 million to $75 million into the local communities every year. 

The Arkansas River rafting season will happen. It will just be a bit different. There will be fewer paddlers on smaller boats. If guests are ready, they will captain their own stand-up paddleboards or inflatable kayaks, which are called duckies. Trips could take longer. Paddlers in rafts are going to play a larger role, helping guides navigate more technical lines through rapids. Lower sections of the river with more water — like the Royal Gorge — will see more traffic. 

The calls from vacationers are coming in. Demand is there. And outfitters are ready. 

Let's face it: When flows are down around 500 cfs, it's hard for guides to give clients the high-excitement pinballing riiver rides that some will tip extra for. (Guides call this trade-off "bash for cash.") 

But there's a bright side too. Anglers won't be sitting out the "rubber hatch" in June and waiting for flows to drop. It should be a great summer for river fishing.

Snakes on Your Screen!

I read once about this Appalachian doctor who told a patient to take a certain medicine in the winter and to keep taking it "until snakes crawl" -- in other words, until warm spring weather. Tying the directions to the natural world was simpler and easier to remember than setting a calendar date. 

 Now I have my reasons for avoiding rattlesnakes, so maybe I could just be a tech-user and watch the Colorado RattleCam.

You are watching a livestream of a Prairie Rattlesnake rookery (MegaDen) at an undisclosed location in Colorado. At this rookery, hundreds of snakes overwinter, shed their skins, and bask in the sun. Dozens of pregnant snakes spend the summer here preparing to give birth and care for their babies. 

ProjectRattleCam also has a camera in California and in some zoos and museums. 

Antero Reservoir Closing; Fish Salvage Underway

Antero Reservoir (Colorado Parks & Wildlife

Antero Reservoir, one of the two "saucer" reservoirs in South Park, as I like to think of them, is being drained to save water in the current drought. (The other is Spinney Mountain Res.)

Denver Water announced Monday it will drain and close South Park’s Antero Reservoir fishing and camping spot to avoid critical evaporation losses in a tinder-dry season. 

The agency serving 1.5 million Front Range customers will send Antero’s reserve down the South Platte River to Cheesman Reservoir and close the recreation area to the public for the first time since the severe 2002 drought.

The move will keep 5,000 acre-feet of water from evaporating in summer heat about one-quarter of the reservoir’s capacity. In a normal runoff year, that 5,000 acre-feet would easily be made up by snowmelt, but Denver has declared this year’s snowpack the lowest in recorded history in its resource areas. 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has announced a "no limits" fish-salvage operation.

All . . . regulations, including a valid Colorado fishing license and legal methods of take, will be enforced. Motorized boating and commercialized fishing will not be allowed. Hand-launched vessels and shoreline angling are permitted.  

After May 13, no public access for camping or anything.

Two Buttes Res. in SE Colorado was recently drained too. Maybe the El Niño winter that is supposed to be coming will refill it.  

That's Cotton in the Blog Stew -- Don't Eat It

Marco checks out a muddy arroyo in Huerfano County.

I let March go by without posting. That's bad. I was deep into the most annoying book-edit of my life. Kind of like "Who's on first?" but with different drafts and different sets of corrections from different proof-readers.

That said, I did get out in the weirdly warm and dry weather to investigate some public hunting lands-mostly Colorado state trust lands that are also grazed, but opened during hunting seasons. 

I may live in the foothills and love mountains, but the High Plains, mesas, and canyons call me too, Chad Love, who lives in Woodward, Oklahoma (touched by one of the big prairie fires this spring) says it well. He talks about autumn here, but early spring as upland seasons end is just the other side:

If you really want to hear the world creak and groan and slip from one epoch into the next, walk out into the prairie in early September. Find a hill to sit on, turn your face up to the sky, let that ancient celestial light strike your eyes, and listen to the ancient gods whispering in your soul’s ear; old thoughts, old yearnings, old fears, old hopes, all welling back up from within on the tendrils of that first softly keening fall breeze that marks the trembling of the seasons and the dimming of the summer light. 

And it's dry, so dry. What can farmers do? Some people suggest that the future is less corn and more cotton, even here in Colorado. 

For decades, the Wertz family focused on corn and alfalfa in the Arkansas Valley. But in recent years, the economics became harder to ignore. Water supplies dwindled, and production costs climbed. They needed a crop that used less water but still offered a solid return.

Even though cotton had never been grown successfully in Colorado, Wertz believed it could be the right fit for their operation.

“Finding a crop that cash flowed better and something that conserved water, we decided cotton was the way to go,” he said. “Cotton does all of those things. It just fit a niche that we were looking for.”
Cotton brings in similar revenue per acre as corn, but requires far less fertilizer and water. That makes it a natural choice for hot, dry areas and more sustainable in drought conditions. 

 Maybe parts of Eastern Colorado will start resembling West Texas—wisps of cotton blowing in the wind. 

Who Has Been Digging Up the Wasps' Nests?

Something there is that does not like a yellowjacket -- 
but loves to tear up the nests and eat fat larvae. 

* * *  

This was a rough autumn in Wasp World. The tenant in our rental cabin, about 150 yards from the main house, reported being attacked by yellowjackets when stepping out on the back stoop. And he is sensitive to them, although not full anaphylactic-shock-death-sensitive.

The wasps got me too when I went over there.  They were coming out of a warp in the cedar siding. Time for action! There I went, gloved and jacketed, wearing a loose head-net over a plastic hard hat, climbing a ladder with wasp spray in hand.

After chemical warfare came expanding foam and calking compound. Eventually the buzzing stopped. 

Wasp traps lure with scent

But there were still some around, so we hung conical wasp traps (they fly in but can't fly out) front and rear. The number of yellowjackets in the air was considerably reduced, although not totally down to zero.

At the main house, we had paper wasps in the greenhouse, but they are not nearly as aggressive as yellowjackets , though they will sting -- particularly dogs, for some reason. I found their nest and dropped it in a bucket of water. They'll be back though, I'm sure

Someone else was hunting wasps too. I found the scene at the top about fifty yards from the cabin. Something had torn into an underground yellowjacket nest, torn out the chambers with tasty larvae in them, and departed. 

Then M. went walking and found another similar pillaged nest a quarter mile up the county road, as shown below. My first thought was "bear," but the damage was rather . . . dainty compared to what bears do. So maybe a skunk? They are always around. 

If you want to see how a bear approaches yellow jacket nests, watch this video from the Wilson Forest Lands YouTube channel

 

Now that's bear style!

For more on bees and wasps -- but mostly bees -- in Colorado, listen to this episode of the Colorado Outdoors podcast, "Pollinate Your Mind: Colorado's Native Bees."  

Cruising El Cuartelejo

 
I'm using the broad definition, not the Kansas-centric one.

And it's the Colorado Otero County, not the New Mexican Otero. But both counties are named for the same man, Miguel Antonio Otero (1829–1882). Now you know.

Endless sky.

Big Cat News from Northern and Southern Colorado

A couple of days ago, I checked the trail camera nearest the house, located about 80 yards up  the ridge in back. With apologies for the infrared flash on the ten-year-old camera, this is one photo of a sequence.

Photo taken about 9:30 p.m. on December 13, 2025.

 M. was out for a walk as I was checking the photos on my laptop. "Guess what I got," I said when she same in. "A mountain lion," she answered. "Steve [our neighbor] showed me a video from his camera."

And here it is, five nights after the photo above.

Not the same cat thought. This one is wearing a collar and tracking device. I checked with the district wildlife manager, who said a study was underway in western Pueblo County and adjacent areas involving a number of collared cats.

Then came the report of a woman killed by a lion while hiking on New Year's Day in western Larimer County, as first announced by Colorado Parks & Wildlife that same afternoon. This Colorado Sun report from January 2 has a little more detail, including an attempted attack on the same trail in November 2025:

Gary Messina said he was running along the same trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in the nearby brush. Messina pulled out his phone and snapped a quick photo before a mountain lion rushed him.

Messina said he threw his phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. After a couple of harrowing minutes he broke a bat-sized stick off a downed log, hit the lion in the head with it and it ran off, he said.

“I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up and it would try to lunge at me.

Both reports say the last known mountain lion killing of a human happened in 1999. That refers to the death of Jaryd Atadero, 3, in the Poudre River canyon west of Fort Collins.

To me from a couple hundred miles away, his unwitnessed death like a lion attack. Some people, including his father, at least initially, wanted to believe it was an abduction and murder. His parents wrote a book about the experience.