"The Native Three," a Short Video on Some Upper Colorado River Fish

I'm working through a backlog of news-related potential blog posts. Here's a short video about state wildlife biologists working with non-game species — but still important native fish.

Just think, there is no "Roundtail Chub Unlimited" with chapters all over the Colorado River basin. Pity.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife's aquatic research scientists have embarked on multiple projects to protect the three fish species native to the Upper Colorado River Basin (Flannelmouth Sucker, Bluehead Sucker and Roundtail Chub). This video, ‘The Native Three’ helps tell that story.

Poachers Do It Mainly for the Thrills — and the Cash

These mule deer were not killed because someone was hungry, but for money. (Colorado Parks & Wildlife)

I was told once that a certain state game warden in my area used to wink at poaching if it was done by people whom he thought "needed the meat." That would have been in the 1950s–1960s. I met him when he was older and retired—only briefly—so I really do not know.

Also in the 1960s, some Western Slope relatives of mine used to cope with rural low wages by poaching deer around the boundaries of Colorado National Monument, I later learned.

I'm sure they "needed the meat" too, but frankly, the one guy was a major thrill-seeker all his (relatively short) life and getting away with something was fun. If crime was boring, there would be a lot fewer criminals.

When you dig into poaching cases, they are usually about money and thrills. This not Robin Hood poaching "the king's deer," although some people bullshit about doing just that.

Ian Petkash, a Park County [Colorado] district wildlife manager, recently stated,

“This year [2022] was far and away the busiest year I’ve had, especially for egregious cases, felony-level cases. I don’t have an explanation on why this year was so bad. I’ve kind of wracked my brain trying to find a pattern"  . . . .

Petkash discovered one common thread in many of his poaching cases: the willful destruction of big game animals, a felony under Colorado law. It generally occurs in one of two ways: shooting and intentionally leaving the entire animal to waste without harvesting its meat, or just claiming the trophy parts, such as the head and hide, and leaving the rest.

Why is it not a surprise that a guy busted in 2019 for poaching deer and bighorn sheep for money in Teller and Chaffee counties then popped into the news again last year, arrested on multiple felony charges for burglaries and weapons possession? (I suppose after his poaching bust, he was by then a "felon in posession.")  Not exactly Robin Hood.

That some poachers are caught after bragging on social media looks like thrill-seeking too

In my area, during the late 2000s, a poaching ring operated killing big mule deer bucks for sale to the trophy-heads market. Of course there was a crooked taxidermist involved, who went down with the others. One must always cherchez le taxidermiste, as Hercule Poirot might say.

One of the ring managed a local cafe, owned by his father. When the arrests came, the locals just stopped going there. His father sent a form letter to everyone in the area: "I didn't know. It wasn't me. Please don't boycott us!" or words to that effect.

But they did, and the cafe closed its doors.

Mountain Lions, Dogs, and Lethal Force

This mountain lion was captured and tagged in Boulder in October 2021.
Relocated to the mountains, it was killed in December 2022 after attacking dogs.
(Photo: Boulder Police Dept, via the Colorado Sun)

In 2003, Colorado journalist David Baron published The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America.

Its topic was human-lion relations on the northern Front Range of Colorado, where cities bump into the mountains, with a focus on Boulder County. (A National Public Radio reporter, Barron wrote that book while on a fellowship in environmental journalism at CU-Boulder.)

As Colorado moved away from treating lions as "varmints" with a bounty on their heads to game animals with a limited "take" allowed, populations had rebounded. Boulder, like many other places, had a thriving herd of in-town mule deer, especially on its western edge, and lions had followed the deer — as they do. (The usual figure you hear is that an adult mountain lion will kill a deer every seven to ten days, feeding on the carcass while it is still relatively fresh.)

The death of Idaho Springs high-school athlete Scott Lancaster, ambushed by a lion in 1991 while training for the cross-country running team, was the first recorded human kill in Colorado.

(Here is a list of post-1890 fatal lion attacks in North America, which is undoubtedly incomplete, especially as regards the US-Mexico border region.)

The attack on the young runner is key to Baron's book, as his website explains:

Here, in a spellbinding tale of man and beast that recalls, only in nonfiction form, Peter Benchley’s thriller Jaws, award-winning journalist David Baron chronicles Boulder’s struggles to coexist with its wild neighbors and reconstructs the paved-with-good-intentions path that led to Colorado’s first recorded fatal mountain lion attack. The book reveals the subtle yet powerful ways in which human actions are altering wildlife behavior.

My takeaway from Baron's book was that the Colorado Division of Wildlife (as it was then called) was willing to try some active "management" of suburban and exurban mountain lions, but the feedback that they got from public meetings leaned toward "Please don't kill them. We can learn to co-exist."

Have things changed? A headline in the online Colorado Sun reads, "Mountain lions killed 15 dogs in 30 days near a Colorado town. Attacks continued and now a lion is dead."

Subhead: "People living in neighborhoods around Nederland wonder why Colorado Parks and Wildlife can’t do more to stop attacks on their pets".

In response, Sam Peterson, CPW’s Area 2 Boulder South District wildlife manager, held a meeting at the Nederland community center. Most of it focused on how to peacefully coexist with lions, but that’s not what the 140 people who attended were after. They wanted to know why lions were hiding out under porches, grabbing 100-pound Dobermans and 70-pound Labs and stalking dogs on leashes held by humans.

So the debate continues: Active measures versus careful co-existence, with residents coming down on both side and CPW reluctant — for both philosophical and budgetary reasons — to commit to sending marksmen and hounds after every mountain lion seen eyeing a dog.

Some Nederland-area residents now do their outdoor chores with firearms handy. But there's a catch. Under Colorado's "nuisance wildlife" laws (link is a PDF file),  a dog is not worth as much as a goat, for example, if the goat is classified as "livestock" and not a "pet."

• Black bears and mountain lions CAN NOT be destroyed when they are causing damage to personal property, including pets. 

• Black bears and mountain lions CAN be killed when it is NECESSARY to prevent them from inflicting death, damage or injury to livestock, human life, real property, or a motor vehicle. Any wildlife killed shall remain the property of the state, and such killing shall be reported to the division within five days. “Real property” means land and generally whatever is erected or growing upon or affixed to land. (Note: “Personal Property” means everything that is subject to ownership, other than real estate. Personal property includes moveable and tangible things such as pets, furniture and merchandise.)

In the Colorado Sun article, we see what happens when someone uses lethal force — sometimes:

After being driven away from one dog attack, a lion moved on to the next house:

The large, reddish cat walked up a neighbor’s driveway. . .  Several minutes later [the residents] heard several gunshots. CPW’s deputy regional manager Kristin Cannon filled in the rest of the story. 

Cannon says the lion attacked a dog at a home 400 yards from [the first attack]  and that during the attack, the dog’s owner killed the lion. She reiterated what Peterson had said, that it’s illegal to kill a lion to protect a pet but that in this instance CPW won’t be pressing charges due to “the totality of the circumstances.” 

Which is to say that the law is black-and-white but the wildlfe officers have a lot of discretion based on circumstances and the shooter's attitude. In my small experience, I have seen them usually avoid charging a shooter, which might put them in court being cross-examined over whether the bear was in the "personal property" garbage can or trying to break into the "real property" house. And there are the public-relations aspects.

But the option to charge someone is always there, beloved dog or not.

Deer or Dogs: Mountain Lions Like Them Both

A lion who did not understand the concept of "focal length" on an inexpensive trail cam.

The Vail Daily reminds ski-country residents and visitors that mountain lions can be just about anywhere in winter time. Two big attractors are "town deer" and loose dogs.

“In Eagle, Vail and Edwards, deer live in everybody’s backyards,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager Matt Yamashita. “That’s a major contribution to human and lion conflict. Mountain lions don’t discriminate between food sources. If there’s a deer there one day and a dog the other, it’s all the same to them.”

* * * 

“When people call about mountain lions, their biggest concern is how to keep themselves, their families, their pets safe,” Yamashita said. “Most activity we see in Eagle County is tied to dogs, specifically, dogs off leash. They’ll stalk dogs. When dogs are in danger, they’ll instinctively retreat to their owners. Dogs are the No. 1 instigator for human-lion interactions. If people could be cognizant of that, we’d have fewer conflicts.”

You always hear that a lion's territory is 70–100 square miles (18,000–25,900 ha). But territories do overlap.

A Parks Pass for You! And a Parks Pass for You! Parks Passes for Everybody!

Annual Colorado state parks pass on a windshield.
These passes cannot be switched between vehicles.

 

The Denver Post had the story last June, but I don't think that it has sunk in yet:

Colorado residents who register a non-commercial vehicle will automatically pay for and receive a pass that allows entry to state parks under a bill Gov. Jared Polis signed Monday [June 20, 2022] that would take effect in 2023.

In the meantime, the state will set the fee, which to start won’t be more than $40, for the Keep Colorado Wild annual pass and work out other details of the program. Residents who don’t want to pay for the pass may opt out.

Affected vehicles incude passenger motor vehicles, trucks with an empty weight of16,000 pounds or less, motorcycles, and recreational vehicles.

Right now, the annual "affixed" pass as pictured is $80/year. Residents 64 years or older pay $70. There is also a "low income" pass.

Additional annual passes are $40/year per vehicle. For the same price, $120, you can buy a "family" pass that can be transferred from vehicle to vehicle if they are "associated" with the same household address.  

But maybe you should not buy one now. Keep reading.

A little-known fact is that many public libraries can "check out" a state park entry pass for a week.

But wait, there's more!

After first saying that a hunting or fishing license would be required to access state wildlife areas, which became more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic, CPW did a 180 and created access passes for most of these state-managed lands (some are owned outright; other are leased): One-day pass $9, annual pass $36.08 (plus habitat stamp) youth/senior/low-income annual pass $10.23. Online purchase here.

Now, big changes!

Ta-da! The Keep Colorado Wild Pass. One pass to rule them . . . or least replace the annual state parks pass — not the wildlife area pass. That stays as above.

"The $29 pass fee is included in the vehicle registration pricing total for each vehicle a resident owns unless they choose to decline."

In other words, you will be charged for the pass unless you decline it. So if you never take your restored 1964 Chevy Impala into a state park, you have to opt-out, otherwise you will be charged.

On the other hand, it is cheaper than the current annual pass.

[Otero County Clerk Lyyn] Scott says the renewal card you receive in the mail will have the extra fee on the card, if you do not want it you must subtract the $29 fee from the total you send in. The easier way, of course, is to just go to the clerk and recorder's office and opt out.

Other sources says that you can opt out if you renew your vehicle registration online. I wonder how many people who do it that way will even notice the extra charge.

In five years, "visitation at Colorado state parks has increased from about 14 million to 17 million visitor days per year."

The Keep Colorado Wlidfe Pass, says CPW,  means millions for "wildlife habitats, search and rescue programs, avalanche awareness education, outdoor equity learning programs and more."

 It should at least double the always-stressed state parks budget. It's also just a little bit sneaky.

A Bear Was Here

Put your garbage out the night before pickup, and a bear will find it.

Some years back, a Colorado Division of Wildlife (as it was then called) public relations job opened up in Montrose, and I seriously considered applying for it. M. was not keen on the moving there though — later she changed her mind about Montrose County — but I had already moved on.

I had done institutional public relations before — in higher ed — so I did not have too many illusions about my role in a bureacracy. And yet that was a reason for my ambivalence — I have always done best in jobs with a fair amount of autonomy, and that probably was not one of those jobs.

The other thing about institutional p.r. is that you put out the same news releases at the same time every year — and that has to be done, I understand. Like every year about now you have to tell people that bears are trying to bulk up before hibernation and so will be aggressively checking out food sources, "legitimate" or not.

Bear doing what they do (Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

Here is this year's CPW news release: "As fall approaches hyperphagia begins, bear activity increases in preparation for winter."

 Black bears in Colorado are entering hyperphagia and will spend up to 20 hours a day trying to eat more than 20,000 calories to fatten up for winter. As bears start to prepare for hibernation and hunt for food, Coloradans may see more bear activity in urban areas.

I am not sure I could visualize 20,000 calories. 

This year, at least along my creek, there are almost no acorns ("mast") on the Gambel (scrub) oaks. An unexpected snowstorm last May 22 hit the oaks when they were flowering, and many never set fruit. Lots of leaves, but no acorns.

Those acorns are a high-calorie food for bears, deer, turkeys, and other animals. So I don't know what they will do. Pulling potato chip packaging out of the garbage won't make up for no acorns.

Serious money is spent on bear-human relations. Here is one example:

Bear Smart Durango - Greater Durango Human-Bear Challenge: $206,539 awarded

Partners Bear Smart Durango and the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado applied for funding on behalf of the Bear Working Group with a partner match and in-kind contribution of $297,135 for a total estimated project cost of $503,932. Their project is aimed at infrastructure and personnel. The infrastructure side will provide all-metal bear-resistant trash containers, food storage lockers, and conflict mitigation materials. The personnel aspect will create a Bear Enforcement Officer and a Fruit Gleaning Coordinator. The grant will cover the first two years for the Bear Enforcement Officer, with La Plata County and other partners assuming expenses by year three. The Fruit Gleaning Coordinator will expand the capacity of this existing position to develop and implement an on-demand, bear mitigation gleaning strategy

Fruit-gleaning? I will admit that I went out today and picked all the apples off this little Haralson apple tree that is just starting to bear. It is surrounded by hog wire to keep the deer from browsing it, but a bear would plow right through that.

It produces tart little green apples. Sometimes I harvest some, but it would not bother me if an athletic bear went after them.

 How many apples make 20,000 calories?

CPW Fishing App Discontinued & I Wonder Which Others to Keep

You maybe did not notice, but last April, Colorado Parks & Wildlife shut down its CPW Fishing app. 

It's still the Apple app store (Android too, I assume), but a CPW spokesman said,

The app is no longer being updated or supported. As we close it down, those who have downloaded the app may still be able to use several functions, but we consider it closed as we are no longer updating the app and that may cause App and Play stores to remove them without notice. We are building a new website with this type of functionality included moving forward.

Users are instead directed to the online Colorado Fishing Atlas,  "an interactive mapping tool offered by CPW that allows users to search for fishing opportunities by species or proximity to your home or destination" and to the division's printed guides.

Here are some outdoor apps that I am keeping and others that I am deleting to free up space.

CPW's  Match A Hatch Colorado app is still available on Google Play, but I don't know what happened with Apple. It works for me because it does not require a data connection. It just serves up photos of what insects should be on the water this month and suggests some matching fly patterns. Keep.

CO Woody Plants (Colorado State University) is straightforward, but it has to download photos. Are you out in the boonies? Carry a printed field guide. I like Derig and Fuller's Wild Berries of the West. Delete.

The myColorado app (State of Colorado) is supposed to hold your driver's license, Colorado Parks and Wildlife licenses, car registrations, etc. Well, the first one works. The driver's license is up to date, but the app still displays my 2019 fishing license with EXPIRED across it. Gee, thanks. Better keep the paper license in my wallet. (But I did drive off without my wallet last Thursday, so I could have needed that digital driver's license, hypothetically.) Keep.

Merlin Bird ID (Cornell University) needs 1.14 GB of iPhone storage, but I hardly use it. It seemed like a good idea, especially when traveling. But sometimes when I test it against known birds, it is not even close. When you do have a good connection and screen space, Cornell's All About Birds website is really useful. Otherwise, a field guide that shows ranges, so you are not trying to identify a Florida bird in Arizona. Sibley Birds West is a good one. Delete.

Explore USFS (US Forest Service)—another example of "just because you can put it on a smartphone does not mean that a smartphone works best." It works better in a web browser on your computer. The app take up "only" 766 MB, but every "tour" of a national forest requires an additional download. Delete.

Colorado Trails Explorer, otherwise CoTrex. "COTREX puts information about all of Colorado’s trails in your hands, thanks to a collaborative effort by land managers at every level." Well, not really, but it has gotten better since its first version.

When CoTrex first launched (rushed out), it was basically a hiking aid for state parks with good cellular data service — Cheyenne Mountain State Park next to Colorado Springs, for instance, although it might have a few dead spots.

There have been improvements since. You can use the website to pick a trail (foot? bicycle? ATV? dogs allowed?), get some information about it,  and download the smartphone app for iPhone or Android. 

You can get driving directions to the trailhead using Google Maps, which means there are some  . . . oddities. One southern Colorado trailhead is labeled "Florence Re-2," which is a school district in a different county. Why? (Letting users add info leads to mis-info. There is plenty of wrong labeling on Google Maps —nonexistent places and so on.)

Users can create profiles, leave trip reports, all the usual stuff. There is a brief tutorial. 

On the other hand, smartphone users will have the usual problems with small-screen navigation, and I have seen some errors in the driving directions, like using the wrong name for a road. It all comes down to whether the state agencies will commit to long-term maintenance.  Keeping, for now.

If you value any outdoor apps in particular, let us know in the comments!

What Happens to Wildlife in Wildfires?

Here is District Wildlife Manager Travis Sauder talking about wildfire and wildlife at the site of the High Park Fire in Teller County (west of Colorado Springs and closer to Cripple Creek), which at this writing has burned a little less than 1,200 acres.

I don't disagree with what he says, but I think his view point is slanted towards larger animals, such as deer, elk, mountain lions, etc. Smaller critters may not know until it's too late. But they tend to reproduce faster too. Maybe it works out.

When it comes to the ungulates, he is right about the improved feeding conditions post-fire, after a few months. I have joked that all fires turning mature conifer forests back into a mixture of trees, grass, and brush are set by the Mule Deer Foundation. For evidence, I offer the fact the Colorado's MDF former Colorado regional director has lived in several residences close to major wildfires, or as they say on the internet, he "has links" to them.

Of course, no reputable conservation group would set fires. I do but jest. But their flagship species does benefit from the changes in foods available to them!

Check Out Colorado's State Trust Land Map Server

It is an interactive map of all lands managed by the State Land Board.

From a news release:

Our public map provides data about our 2.8 million acres of surface trust land and our four million acres of mineral estate. We’ve made our GIS layers available to the public with tabular information about leases, rights-of-way, Stewardship Trust designations, the Public Access Program, acquisitions, patents, and more.

Plus, you can overlay your own Shapefile, CSV, or KML files on top of ours. Zip your files and use our new ‘Add Data’ tool, located in the top right corner of our map

If you go to the basic map, there will be a menu of map layers on the right-hand side of screen. You can check "SLB leases-recreation," but be aware of one thing — not all "recreational" leases provide public access for hunting and fishing.

Some State Land Board lands are leased to individuals or hunting clubs, etc. So click on the parcel to get the leasing info, as shown in the screen shot here.

Where in the Riparian is the Redtail?

Another patient in the Raptor Center "ICU."

The injured red-tailed hawk, the game warden said, was somewhere in the riparian cottonwood grove near where the power line crosses the little gravel road to the fishing pond.

What color is a red-tailed hawk sitting on the ground? Streaky brown and creamy white. What color(s) is the landscape? Shades of tan and brown.

He couldn't help because he was two counties away at some other activity. Luckily, he did have the phone number of the man who found the hawk,  and luckily that man answered and agreed to meet me at the site. 

The finder led me to a spot near the bird, which was impersonating a small stump in the tall grass beside the winter-clear water of the Arkansas River.

I laid my cotton flannel capture net on it, and it rolled into claws-up defensive position, which actually makes a hawk easy to pick up if you have your heavy gloves on. It footed me, but not very strongly. 

Into the bright blue carrier it went — I like this model because you can lift the top and set birds into it, instead of having to stuff them into a smaller end opening. 

Off to the Raptor Center we drove, where the hawk was pronounced dangerously underweight. 

"He's been on the ground [not hunting] a few days," the director said. Hydration, rest, and food come next. 

The hawk probably collided with the aformentioned power line, maybe burning a wing tip and injuring a foot. Human infrastructure strikes again.

Wolverines! They Might Be Coming Back to Colorado

Wolverine in Glacier Nat. Park (NPS)

Fictional southern Colorado high schools may no longer be accused of using an almost non-existent animal (in this state) as their mascot.

The last confirmed wolverine sighting — and it was a rare one—  was in 2009. A tagged male wolverine left northwestern Wyoming, wandered intp Colordo, and then headed for North Dakota.

Indeed, from his starting point near Jackson Hole, M56 took less than a month to arrive in the Centennial State, where his kind was last reported in 1919.

The venture confirmed what was believed of wolverines’ tendency to cover vast ground. Still, researchers were astonished by the speed. And more than that, they marveled at watching in real time the animal of mythological lore that had always evaded their view. (Recent estimates suggest low densities, small numbers in big places — between 250 and 350 moving across rugged, remote fringes of the Lower 48 states.)

Colorado Parks & Wildlife (back then the Colorado Division of Wildlife) formulated some reintroduction plans, but did not carry through. Now, wolverines are back on the table, so to speak. (You would not want a live one on your table.)

Wolverine reintroduction has not come up in Colorado Wildlife Commission meetings for more than a decade. The agency began a wolverine reintroduction process in 2010 and created “an extensive plan for how reintroduction could be accomplished,” said CPW spokesman Travis Duncan. 

Recently, the agency has been reviewing that plan and process to find possible update and what remains workable, Duncan said. 

“We will be working with a wolverine expert who is going to take on updating and providing greater detail on a wolverine restoration and management plan,” he said. “The contract isn’t in place yet, but we hope to be able to say more on this soon.”

Meanwhile, in Lewistown, Montana, urban wolverines? We're not there yet. 

UPDATE: And in Utah this month, a wolverine killed or wounded 18 sheep in one morning before being captured, radio-collared, and released.

Blog Stew with Lynx*

 • Here is a short video about lynx in Colorado.**

• Is your toothache really Lyme disease?

• The history of outdoor life in the Nordics is long and really incorporated with the culture, since we have a lot of land and a small population." Emphasis addded. Anyhow, they have a word for it. We don't, but we have the concept.

-------------------------

* If I remember right, the first text-only hyperlink browser I ever used was called Lynx (get it?).  Wikipedia says it was launched in 1992 and is still being maintained.

** I think that biologist at the beginning is married to my cousin. I have a lot of cousins — can't keep track.

Making Legal Use of Fresh Colorado Roadkill

(Photo from Utah state government)

An article in the Sopris Sun (Pitkin County) quotes a man who moved there from Alaska a few years back: 

“After I relocated to the Roaring Fork Valley, it was curious to me that the animals [along the side of the road] were left to scavengers, given my prior experience in Alaska,” says Missouri Heights resident Mike Fleagle, who moved here in 2018.

Fleagle is an Alaska Native (Iñupiaq tribe), former chair of the Alaska Board of Game and has hunted and lived off wild foods his entire life. 

In November 2018, Fleagle recalls spotting a just-hit buck in the center median on Highway 82, which was the first time he used the salvage permit dispensed by Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) and local law enforcement agencies for harvesting roadkill. 

With his roadkill buck, Fleagle cut and packaged roasts, stew meat and steak, made burger with purchased beef suet (raw, hard fat ideal for frying) and Italian sausage with purchased pork suet and then jerked some “for a special treat.”

He just called the sheriff's dispatcher to start the process. (In most places, the sheriff dispatch also talks to game wardens, although technically they are dispatched after-hours by Colorado State Patrol, since they are state agencies.)

There is a process for doing this legally, but if you visit the Colorado Parks and Wildlife and put "road kill" or "roadkill" into the search box, you get nothing. Likewise on the FAQ page — at least that was my experience.   

Compare Alaska's online information! 

Meanwhile, Cornell University's Waste Management Institute (now there is a college major that will get you hired) will give you a video on composting roadkill. Read more here. 

This method is intended for road departments and municipalities, but if you have a large back yard, plentiful wood chips, and a front loader, you are all set.

Composting provides an inexpensive alternative for disposal of dead animals in many cases. Composting animal carcasses is not new; chickens, pigs, calves, cows and even whales have been composted.

Passively aerated static pile composting in which piles are not turned and natural processes result in high temperatures is proving to be a viable method of managing carcasses. It is quick and simple, uses equipment and materials used in daily road maintenance operations and is cost effective. 

 

This method helps protect ground and surface water by keeping the carcasses out of contact with water. Composting also reduces pathogens, nuisance to neighbors and odors in properly managed piles.

The Feral Volunteers: Thoughts on Wildlife Transport

Pueblo Raptor Center director Diana Miller and her new intern, Aaron,
examine a goshawk that collided with a window in Nathrop, Colorado. The prognosis was good.

 

Looking at the Facebook page for Colorado Parks & Wildlife Volunteers — which I admit that I don't read every week — I saw there was a volunteer-recognition picnic last month for my region. 

The person posting commmented, "small group this year." Well, yeah, M. and I did not even know that it was happening, for one thing. But that's OK. We are the feral volunteers.

Most volunteers, God bless them, have regular assignments. I have been at state parks where the volunteers — staffing entrance booths, working at visitor centers, serving as campground hosts, etc. — outnumber the paid staff.  The whole system would break down without them. They get paid in free parks passes, hats and jackets and water bottles and other such plunder*, and words of thanks. (If you live in your RV all summer while serving as a campground host, is there a tax write-off? I don't know.)

Other volunteers work more on the wildlife side, doing habitat-improvement projects, monitoring wildlife (such as osprey nests or bighorn sheep), assisting fisheries biologists, and so on. All good.  In my region, SE Colorado, volunteers contributed more than 45,000 hours in 2020, valued (somehow) at more than $1.3 million.

I like the unscheduled weirdness of wildlife transport though.

We transporters don't go to State Park X and do Assignment Y. We go up some raggedy road to where it's all cactus, guns, and pit bulls but someone says he has captured a hawk that might be hurt. Or — this was M.'s and my first assignment — we drive to Exit ••• off Interstate 25 north of Pueblo, cross the railroad tracks, and wait . . . until an unmarked box truck pulls up and the driver, having ascertained who we are, hands over a cardboard carton holding a racoon. A racoon that was caught tearing up a liquor store in La Junta, Colorado.

We took it to a rehab center. Night had fallen when we finished. "It's like being in the Resistance," M. said. It was a feral evening.

We wildlife transporters don't have hours. We don't wear uniforms — well, there is a basebal lcap and a name tag, useful if you are going to someone's remote home, and you want them to chain the pit bulls.

We almost never go to an office or deal with "management," just with local game wardens — officially "district wildlife managers" —  who themselves have a lot of disgression in how they do their jobs. 

(Does that orphan bear cub live or die? Does the DWM call a rehabber — or pull their state-issued .308 rifle from the truck? It's up to them. Having a volunteer transporter to call on might make the difference.)

Wildlife rehabilitators are a pretty feisty bunch too. The best ones work in a "no-show" mode. They are rehabilitation facilities, not petting zoos! And if people show up hoping to let their grandkids meet the bear cubs, the only thing they will see is the exit. 

The Pueblo Raptor Center, I should say, is an exception, because it is part of a larger facility and because it has "education birds," those who cannot survive in the wild but are taken around to schools, etc. You can go during visitor hours and take a tour. The birds who might make it in the wild are kept out of sight. Volunteers do a lot there too.

Wildlife transport is like being on the volunteer fire department only without the radio tones and the dinging cell phone, and the chatter, "You want me to bring the other brush truck? Copy that!"

In our case, it's asking if the critter is already caught or needs to be caught (Thick gloves! Cotton-flannel capture net! Carrier! Flea powder!) or if maybe it just needs to be moved from one carrier to another so that the original person can take theirs home. And where are we going? Do we have the reporting person's phone number, the DWM's phone number, and has someone notified the facility that animal or bird is coming? And much of the time we are in places with no cell-phone service.

What is the pay-off? Sometimes we are given a bird or animal to release. Whether it was an evening grosbeak rocketing out of the carrier to join a flock of its fellows near my house, a turkey vulture soaring over the Royal Gorge, or raccoons scooting off into the brush, it's a good feeling.

* "merch," if you prefer.

Habitat Improvement at Spanish Peaks SWA

 

This work might be special interest to turkey hunters.

Black Bear Bolts in Rocky Mountain National Park (Updated with Video)

Young black bear boar runs for freedom (National Park Service)

At six a.m. last Thursday (the 20th) this young male black bear and his "cellmate" had some visitors: three National Park Service employees and two Colorado game wardens. The last were there to instruct the former in the fine points (heh) of darting and tranquilizing bears.

The two "boys" (subadults) came down from Rocky Mountain National Park to a rehabilitation center in southern Colorado after the East Troublesome Fire last year. They spent the winter getting fat — and somewhat bored — until finally it was time to release them in a area not so much frequented by park visitors.

One of the NPS staffers reported, "The boys were very well-behaved and calm on the trip. The release went really well — away from visitors."

The GPS-tracking collar shown is designed to come off after a time.

I would probably enjoy traveling up I-25 through Denver more if I could be tranquilized in a windowless trailer too.*

The rehabbers were curious if the two bears would pal around together for a time, but the GPS evidence said they did not.

"The bears stuck together for less than two minutes before going in separate directions. They're sub adults and their genetics are telling them to go off and find their own territories," one of the NPS stafers reported.

* Actually, bears in transit are usually recovering from the anesthesia with the aid of another drug. For one thing, it means one will not end up lying on top of the other and possibly smothering it. An exception might be if they have to be moved from the transport trailer on a sled or something, where they need to be kept quiet longer.

Colorado Revives Wildlife Area "Pass" for Non-Hunters/Anglers

Tomahawk SWA offers fishing access to the South Platte River in South Park.

Last year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife identified a problem with state wildlife areas: too many people were turning them into campgrounds, etc. without holding a hunting or fishing license.

Many people do not realize that quite a few state wildlife areas are not public land. Many lakes, for example, are owned by irrigation companies and such who lease fishing rights to the state.

So CPW announced that a hunting or fishing license would be require to "recreate" on a state wildlife area, and fishing license sales rose. That is $46.48 when you throw in the required "habitat stamp." Selling more fishing licenses is good too because it means Colorado gets more matching federal funds.

Now, something new. A state wildlife access permit! They tried that in 2006. Back then it was $10. But that fee died a quiet death. Now it's back and oddly enough, the annual pass is priced exactly like a fishing license!

Here is the news release:

(March 23, 2021 DENVER) – At its virtual meeting last week, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to approve a new Colorado State Wildlife Area Pass as an option to access state wildlife areas. The new pass will go on sale May 1, 2021.

“This is an important step in ensuring everyone who visits our state wildlife areas is contributing to their management and maintenance,” said CPW Director Dan Prenzlow.

The annual Colorado SWA Pass will be available on May 1, 2021 by visiting any CPW office or online at cpwshop.com. The pass will be priced similarly to a resident annual fishing license and revenue from the new SWA pass will be used to manage and maintain SWAs.

Colorado State Wildlife Area Pass
annual: $36.08*
1 day: $9
Youth (ages 16-17) annual: $10.07
Senior (ages 65 and older) annual: $10.07
Low-income annual: $10.07
(Fees include a $1.50 Wildlife Education Fund surcharge)
*Plus a fee of $10.40 for a Colorado Wildlife Habitat Stamp

The annual pass is valid from March 1 – March 31 of the following year, also aligning with the 13-month season for fishing licenses in Colorado.

History and funding of state wildlife areas in Colorado
CPW now manages more than 350 SWAs, all set aside to conserve wildlife habitat with dollars from hunting and angling licenses. Those funds are also matched with federal income from the excise taxes collected on the sale of hunting and fishing equipment.

While these properties have been identified as critical wildlife habitat, over the years they have also gained significant value for outdoor recreationists.
Because these properties have always been open to the public, not just to the hunters and anglers that purchased them and pay for their maintenance, many people now visit these properties and use them as they would any other public land.

As Colorado’s population - and desire for outdoor recreation - has continued to grow, a significant increase in traffic to these SWAs has disrupted wildlife, the habitat the areas were acquired to protect, and the hunters and anglers whose contributions were critical to acquiring these properties.

That’s why in July of 2020, new regulations went into effect requiring all visitors 18 or older to possess a valid hunting or fishing license to access any SWA leased by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

CPW had historically been bound by stringent guidance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on how income earned from these properties could be accounted for, making the creation of another kind of pass to access these areas financially unfeasible. But in late 2020, CPW received approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a new accounting approach that made adding a pass as an option for access to these properties feasible.

In November 2020, an SWA Working Group was created with CPW staff and stakeholders from around the state to determine what a new pass might look like.

A new State Wildlife Area Pass
At its January 2021 meeting, the CPW Commission heard recommendations from the SWA Working Group on creating a new Colorado SWA Pass.

Recommendations:
The group recommended pricing the annual pass at a similar level to the annual fishing license, offering discounted passes to youth and seniors priced comparably to youth and senior fishing licenses, offering a 1-day pass option priced comparably to the 1-day parks pass, requiring a Habitat Stamp and a surcharge for the Wildlife Management Public Education Fund in addition to the pass, and offering a discounted low-income annual pass option. The age at which a hunting license, fishing license or SWA pass is required to access SWAs was reduced to all persons 16 years and older to better correspond to the youth pass and license options.

Now that the Colorado SWA Pass is available, the SWA Working Group will move into Phase II of its work, completing an audit of all Colorado’s SWAs to determine which properties may require additional restrictions on allowed activities, seasonal closures for wildlife, and reviews to determine if the property is still meeting its intended purpose as a wildlife area.

More information and SWA FAQ about CPW’s state wildlife areas is available on CPW’s website.

120 Colorado Bears Killed Last Year, Mostly over Human Trash

This bear's ear tags, caught in an infrared photograph show that it was trapped
and relocated before. "Two strikes and you're out. (My scout camera photo, 2014.)

Some 120 bears were "euthanized" (often with a state-issued .308 rifle, I think that means) in 2020, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife reports.

This number refers to killing judged necesary by game wardens, not by hunters during the fall season, which is tallied separately.

Another 89 were trapped and relocated.  

“Unfortunately I would classify 2020 as a fairly ‘normal’ year for bear activity,” said Area 8 Wildlife Manager Matt Yamashita. “‘Unfortunate’ is in reference to the still substantial number of conflict bear calls across the state. Compared to 2019 statistics it appears that human-bear conflict numbers have decreased and the situation is improving. However, wildlife managers are hesitant to draw conclusions from a comparison between two years.

Often you will find a sow bear being killed and its cubs sent to our neighbors the wildlife  rehabilitators. I have hauled a lot of donated food for those cubs and helped get them loaded up for return to the wild. I know the rehabbers do their very best for them. But it's still not real life, so to speak.

A skinny black bear mom and her cub.
(My scout camera photo, 2020.)

"CPW responded to almost five thousand bear reports in 2020. Of those, a third had trash documented. Bird feeders (411 reports), unsecured chicken coops (254) and livestock (391), among others, are all pieces of the puzzle wildlife officials document when tracing conflicts.

"Trash and bird feeders are typically a bear’s first association with people. It is their first step that leads them to becoming habituated, or losing their natural fear of humans. After learning this house or neighborhood has easy calories available to them in those forms, the next place they may look to for more is in an open garage, or pet food on your deck, or even break into your car for a treat it can smell.

"Being rewarded with food over time makes a bear willing to take greater risks to get the calories it needs. The next and most dangerous step they may take is to break into a home. In 2020, CPW documented 362 reports that had bears breaking into homes, cabins, dwellings and garages (forcible entry into a garage, not walking into one left open)."

This is CPW's "Be Bear Aware" page, and its advicce works outside Colorado too. 

It helps to remember this part: "With a nose that’s 100 times more sensitive than ours, a bear can literally smell food five miles away."

Black Bears Matter

M. and I  been watching (and hauling food for) this young black bear sow since July, when she was brought to our neighbors' rehab center after having been arrested in the little town of Beulah on a charge of raiding chicken coops and porches for food. Not the most efficient raider, she weighed only about 35 lbs. (16 kg.) at the time— undersize for a yearling.

So she came to the center and occupied a large enclosure alone, being too big to be put in with this spring's group of orphan cubs. She ate. She was bored. They tried to give her some "enrichment" — things to play with etc., most of which she destroyed, being a bear, after all. She smashed a couple of dogloos too —again, not a surprise. (They go through a lot of dogloos.) And she ate.

I saw her on the two weeks ago and was astonished at how she had grown — up to 140 lbs. (63.5 kg.), they said.

Gretchen Holschuh, the district wildlife manager who had trapped her (that's her cranking open the gate) chose the release site, which was on private land this time, with a cooperating landowner. They always wait for all the big-game hunting seasons to be over before releasing bears — by December, bears should know it's time to get serious about hibernation.

Free at last, she ran off into the snow as fast as she could. Considing the summer's drought, she was probably better off in terms of weight than most of the other bears. I hope she stays away from chicken coops this time.

Pouring Bureaucratic Syrup on the Wolves

Gray wolf (Colorado Parks & Wildlife)

The people have spoken: Coloradans voted by a roughly 1% margin to order Colorado Parks & Wildlife to re-introduce gray wolves.   Or as one site put it: "Urban vote decides for rural Colorado."

As the Grand Junction ABC affiliate reports, roughly 62% of Western Slope voters said no to the measure, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Front Range voter advantage.

Which is usually the way it goes on statewide votes. 

The pro-wolf faction adopted the language of nature:

The Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, a backer of the proposition, said this is the first time citizens have voted to initiate the restoration of a native species.

“Voters throughout Colorado took politicians out of the picture, choosing to restore natural balance by returning wolves to their rightful place in Colorado,” said Rob Edward, fund president.

 CPW director Dan Prenzlow bowed to the inevitable:

“Our agency consists of some of the best and brightest in the field of wildlife management and conservation. I know our wildlife experts encompass the professionalism, expertise, and scientific focus that is essential in developing a strategic species management plan. CPW is committed to developing a comprehensive plan and in order to do that, we will need input from Coloradans across our state. We are evaluating the best path forward to ensure that all statewide interests are well represented."

So where does the money come from?
(Graphic: University of Maine)

When agency heads start talking about "leadership" and "plans" and "stakeholders" and "statewider interests," and other vague terms, I call it "pouring bureaucratic syrup over a problem." Lots of soothing talk, sort of telling a child who awoke from a bad dream to just go back to sleep, Mommy is here.  Glug-glug-glug.

(I knew one US Forest Service district ranger who absolutely mastered it; I don't know if she accepted Smokey Bear as her personal savior, but she sure could drop twenty buzzwords in one sentence.)

Colorado now has a Wolf Management Website where you can track the process of trying to do what the voters requested while trying to find the money to pay for it. There is good information there on the legalities of "introduced" wolves versus those who wander in on their own, which agency (federal or stte) manages which wolves, and so on.

UPDATE: Newly elected State Senator Bob Rankin, who represents the area that included both self-transplanted wolves and the proposed wolf release, plants to introduce a bill to re-locate an equivalent number of wolves to Boulder and Jefferson counties. (Jefferson includes most of Denver's western suburbs.) 

“I do intend to do that,” Rankin — who won formal election to the state Senate last week — said following his victory. “I’m going to have to admit: it’s more just a protest, more than anything else, to call attention to the fact that the people most affected voted against [Proposition 114].”

 The bill stands no chance, and he knows it. There was a "credible" sighting on the Eastern Slope earlier this year though.