Any time I don’t have a title image, I can just go outside, point my camera on my phone at Rocky Mountain National Park, and get a beautiful image. I was unable to see any of the Northern Lights this past weekend, but I hope some of you might have been lucky. It was always a mix of clouds up here.
Bison Killed West of Craig, Colorado
From the Denver Post —
Drivers in western Colorado know to keep an eye out for deer and the occasional moose or elk that might stray onto the roadway. But on Monday night, a driver of a Toyota Prius ran into a bison in the dark on U.S. 40 west of Craig and lived to tell about it.
“The highway stayed open. There were no injuries to the driver,” said Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gabriel Moltrer.
The bison was killed in the accident, which occurred near milepost 74 at around 10:34 p.m. That mile marker is near the Lay Valley Bison Ranch. Efforts to reach someone at the ranch were not successful.
My impression of the crash-worthiness of the Prius just went up in my mind. My sympathy goes out to the bison and its family. Also, per the story, a study by State Farm Insurance says generally Colorado is a low risk state for large animal vs. car collisions, since most of Colorado’s population is on the eastern I-25 corridor and not where the large animals tend to be.
On a better note, I attended a presentation over Zoom this last week by the Southern Plains Land Trust which talked about their efforts to bring a wild bison herd (split into three groups) to their reserves in southeastern Colorado. These bisons would not be raised for meat, like many of the locations around Colorado (and where the bison above was being raised), but instead left to try and recover the landscape that has been tilled, farmed and had non-native grasses predominate. It isn’t only bison that they’re working with. They have large populations of prairie dogs, burrowing owls, black-footed ferrets and other animals native to the “American Serengeti” as the high plains are called.
Wednesday, May 22nd, I’m taking a bus trip with the Estes Valley Land Trust to Soapstone Prairie Natural Area and Red Mountain Open Space. It’s $40 for members of the Land Trust and $60 for non-members, and it is from 9-3 that day. I am looking forward to getting out to the prairie again. When I first came to Colorado to live (and attend CSU), my first trip wasn’t up into the mountains. I went out onto the prairie chasing thunderstorms, taking photos of hawks and rolling hills, and I had a wonderful time.
www.evlandtrust.org/…
Jared Polis Penned A Letter Touting Legislative Achievements This Year.
It is in the Denver Post and probably some other outlets. Here are the first three paragraphs:
The 2024 session of the General Assembly has just ended, and elected lawmakers and I have kept our promise to Coloradans and delivered real results on the issues that matter most: efforts to reduce the high cost of housing, making historic investments in convenient transit, saving Coloradans a billion dollars on their property taxes, reducing the income tax rate, fully funding schools, making Colorado safer, reducing childhood poverty and protecting our environment for future generations.
Together, we’ve laid the foundation for the future of our state. A stronger, safer, more affordable future where every person can thrive.
It hasn’t always been easy, but by bringing people to the table — people who don’t often agree — and finding innovative solutions to our most complex challenges, we got it done.
Wolves. Again.
I also attended another presentation, this time by a biologist who has been studying wolves for multiple decades. He spoke to the Estes Valley Watershed Coalition, another environmental organization up here, and they have lots of resources, both for the Estes Valley and for the mountains in general. The presentation is on the website at www.evwatershed.org/…. You can also find lots of other videos on subjects including fire management, mushrooms of the mountains, bats of northern Colorado, water cycles and other things that I find interesting.
I hope you have had interesting weeks as I have. Please let us know what is going on in your neck of the woods, or towns, or cities. This is an open thread after all. The floor is yours...