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 finally full again. Of ground so saturated, fires 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 officer 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 difficult. Food has been extremely difficult for big game to find as much of it is covered by deep, hard-packed snow. This 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 Jeffrey 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 suffer from starvation.” And she said that in addition to mortality from malnutrition, wildlife officials had seen an increase in animals injured or killed from vehicle collisions.

With normal migration routes difficult 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 efforts 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 the corner of Colorado bounded by Wyoming and Utah, however, 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 first 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.”

“To be honest, there was a little bit of worry even before the reductions were announced,” she said. “I totally understand why CPW is doing what they’re doing, but I don’t know what it’ll mean for the area as a whole.”

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 affected. While CPW didn’t reduce