2013 Wildlife & Nature Archive Stories

Dirt bike riders plan to sue the U.S. Forest Service in an effort to compel the agency to ban all users from trails in the Bear Creek drainage area that were closed to vehicles last fall as part of a court settlement to protect an endangered fish. It’s the latest salvo in what has become a flash point in th

The first time Bob Falcone nearly was bitten, he was scrambling around the hill just east of Garden of the Gods, trying to get the perfect photo of the rocks. The hill is known, appropriately enough, as Rattlesnake Ridge. “It had four chances to bite me in the hand and it missed,” the avid hiker recalled.He&rsqu

A motion-activated wildlife surveillance camera has captured what one expert calls the first documented sighting of a North American river otter in Boulder in about 100 years. "I was extremely surprised," said Christian Nunes, a wildlife ecology technician for Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks. "It's a species that is quite rare in C

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to close several miles of trails along Bear Creek west of Colorado Springs to the public to protect an endangered fish. The area is popular with hikers and mountain bike and dirt bike riders. But research found it is home to the only genetically pure population of greenback cutthroat trout, dumped in

ASPEN — Judy Dunn, of Aspen, couldn't quite believe the call she got Monday morning — and not because it was April Fools' Day. Her dog, Sophie, had been missing for nine days, presumably on Independence Pass, where she had disappeared. The message on Dunn's phone Monday morning indicated the dog had been found. So d

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. — The body of a woman recovered from the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon is that of a missing Colorado woman. Kaitlin Kenney of Englewood last was seen alive on Jan. 11 at a river camp near Tapeats Creek on the north

There's a new male lion at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.Named Abuto, the one-and-a-half-year-old African lion is the fifth member of the zoo's lion pride.Visitors can catch glimpses of Abuto through the windows of the Zoo’s new Encounter Africa lion building, located around the corner from the giraffe building. Animal keep

FORT COLLINS — The Colorado State Forest Service has a new director. Colorado State University says CSU alumnus Mike Lester will fill the post July 1 — replacing Deputy State Forester Joe Duda, who has been the interim state forester since March 2012. The previous state forester, Jeff Jahnke, retired last year after se

ASPEN — The population of Colorado's bighorn sheep herds in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness has plummeted over the past 15 years and wildlife officials want to know why. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Division captured 10 bighorn rams last week and outfitted them with tracking collars. According to the Aspen Ti

In the San Luis Valley, they have arrived, the first wave of an ancient migration that will bring practically the entire population of Rocky Mountain sandhill cranes to the fields and marshes near Monte Vista. In the eastern plains, prairie chickens are emerging from holes to begin their dancing, one of the more bizarre mating rituals in

LANDER, Wyo. — A bighorn sheep that liked to butt vehicles at a central Wyoming state park has died. Officials with the Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander say Bam Bam was the last survivor of the bighorn sheep herd in the Sinks Canyon. He is believed to have died of natural causes. Bam Bam became a local celebrity w

The Natural Resources Conservation Service says a heavy snowstorm that moved through Colorado last week helped boost the state's snowpack, but the figure remains below average. Mage Hultstrand, assistant snow survey supervisor for the NRCS, tells The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/Y1jSi1 ) "it's huge

INDIANAPOLIS — Jeff Counceller says a dying fawn he found on someone's porch three years ago surely wouldn't have lived had he and his wife not nursed it back to health on their eastern Indiana farm. The Connersville police officer insists they had no clue that they could be breaking the law.

GOLDEN — Colorado wildlife officials with help from Coors brewery employees have rescued a large mule deer stranded on an icy lake near Golden. Colorado Parks and Wildlife district spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said Thursday the animal wandered onto the frozen lake or was chased by a predator and appeared to be in good cond

At some point, about 100 million years ago, when Pikes Peak had not yet risen and Colorado Springs was beach-front property on a warm, shallow sea, a dinosaur with three long, clawed toes ambled out of the forest and stepped into a patch of sandy mud in what is now Red Rock Canyon Open Space. The print it left was covered in muck, and st

After initially denying neighbor reports that Boulder police shot a large bull elk at Ninth Street and Mapleton Avenue late Tuesday night, police officials today revealed that an on-duty officer did kill the animal, but failed to file a report with his supervisors or notify dispatchers. A second, off-duty officer took the elk home "to be

Before Colorado’s wildfires burned neighborhoods, they raged through forest habitats, separating does from fawns, splitting the Pikes Peak herd of bighorn sheep and forcing at least one bear to wander through burned areas looking for unburned havens. Nonetheless, it seems the wildlife of the Pikes Peak region emerged from the Waldo