Hard winter for wild herds now limits hunting

State slashed licenses, but towns that rely on hunters hurting

BY TRACY ROSS THE COLORADO SUN

When the storms bearing more snow than people had seen in years came to northwestern Colorado last winter, they were full of promise.

Of creeks and rivers bursting at their seams. Of reservoirs nally full again. Of ground so saturated, res like the ones that had burned the previous summers might not be able to take hold.

But the slow-moving fronts that dropped snow in four-foot increments brought no help for the deer, elk, moose and pronghorn that forage near the towns of Maybell, Meeker, Rangely, Dinosaur and Craig. For them, the precipitation that fell, the winds that blew and the temperatures that hovered below zero for weeks on end meant death in numbers not seen in decades.

Rachael Gonzales, the northwest region public information o cer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, wrote as much in a post on the agency’s website dated March 28:

“It has been a tough winter for wildlife. … Since the start of the season the National Weather Service’s Maybell weather station has recorded over 80 inches of snow for the area. Prolonged snow combined with strong gusty winds have made an already hard time of year for wildlife even more di cult. Food has been extremely di cult for big game to nd as much of it is covered by deep, hard-packed snow. is has forced thousands of animals to migrate farther west than they typically do, burning much-needed fat and calories they likely won’t replenish.”

She then relayed a story of a bull elk she saw while on a ride-along with District Wildlife Manager Je rey Goncalves in the region:

“…we noticed a mature bull elk that was unable to get up after several attempts. After watching and evaluating the elk for several minutes, the decision was made to euthanize the bull so it would no longer su er from starvation.”

And she said that in addition to death from malnutrition, o cials had seen more animals injured or killed from vehicle collisions.

With normal migration routes di cult for wildlife to navigate, they had resorted to using roadways as they searched for food. Sometimes that food was located on a narrow shoulder along a windy section of road, Gonzales wrote. On Jan. 14, a semi traveling eastbound from Utah on U.S. 40 hit 35 pronghorn on the road, and on Jan. 19, another driver hit a group of 18 near Craig. Over the course of the winter, district wildlife managers in the northwest region responded to four incidents involving vehicle collisions with groups of 10 or more of the animals.

On April 5, the Rio Blanco Herald Times, a newspaper serving the northwest region, quoted now-retired CPW wildlife manager Bill deVergie as saying deer fawn survival was in the 30% range and heading toward 20%; elk calf survival was 35% to 40% of normal; and only 10% of pronghorn fawns, the hardest hit, were surviving.

CPW said it was one of the worst winters for wildlife it had ever seen, despite massive e orts to help the animals. Area managers had dropped tons of hay for them to eat, and local ranchers had left barn doors open, welcoming them in. But in the end a catastrophic number of Colorado’s healthiest ungulate herds died.

As bad as the winter of 2023 was for wildlife in northwestern Colorado, it could also be bad for thousands of people who live in the same region and rely on the big-game hunting seasons that start in mid-August and run through November.

Emails from CPW started going out to hunters who put in for the draw the rst week of June. Once hunters know they’ve scored a tag, many start planning their trips. But Cody Nelson, who owns Moosehead Lodge in Rangely, 13 miles east of the Utah border, in the White River Valley, said she can “already see a dramatic decrease in bookings from previous years.”

Even over-the-counter tags, which are set by the Colorado state legislature and available in August to any hunter for a certain price after the limited draw is over, were a ected. While CPW didn’t reduce the number, it did shorten two seasons in which hunters could use over-thecounter tags for elk in the severe-winter zone — downsizing one season to ve days from nine and another to ve days from seven.

Rooms at Nelson’s lodge range from $85 to $105 per night and she says she books up during hunting season. With nine lodge rooms and seven cabins booked seven days a week at an average of $95 per night, Nelson could lose more than $100,000 between the start of the deer, elk, and pronghorn hunting seasons, in mid-August, and the end, in December.

Hunters also need to eat, buy lastminute supplies and maybe treat themselves to a few shots of whiskey after their hunts, so that’s more money they spend and more tax revenue for the town of 2,200.

Dylan LeBleu, a dispatcher for the

Rangely Police Department, says that while Rangely isn’t a “hunting town,” he’s part of a community of hunters who rely on game meat to ll their freezers. “We have a market here, but not anything big, and it’s a little expensive,” he says, “and the nearest Walmart is an hour away.”

A pound of “all natural” 97% lean ground beef at Walmart currently costs around $7. is multiplied b the estimated 160 pounds of meat a hunter can typically harvest from an average-size 500-pound elk equates to $1,120. Add the cost of gas to drive 100 miles round trip to the Walmart in Vernal, Utah, and back, and subtract the $63 cost of an over-thecounter license to hunt for an elk, and no matter how you look at it, it’s more a ordable for a local to hunt than it is to buy their meat from a grocery store.

Debbie Fitch and her family own several businesses associated with their Fitch Ranch in Parshall, so they likely won’t be as impacted as some due to the size and diversity of their enterprise. “But a lot of people’s livelihoods in this part of the country rely on hunting revenue and I think it’s going to be a tough year for a lot of them,” she said.

“For restaurants, out tters, processors, taxidermists. ey’ll be impacted in multiple ways. And then there’s just … the wildlife out here. It’s so sad,” she added. “It was hard to look at. We had one elk that just laid down in our yard next to our hay bales and that was it.” is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.