Photo Credits: Good Bull Outdoors

In August, Gov. Jared Polis gave sportsmen and women a tool to protect migration corridors in Colorado. BHA welcomes this executive order (EO), and we thank the governor for his leadership on this bipartisan issue. If you’d like to thank Gov. Polis for this action you can follow this link.

The Importance Of Wildlife Habitat

In 2004 a group of seven hunters and anglers came together around a campfire to discuss the tenets of our hunting heritage. The conversation that ensued shaped the core mission and values of what Backcountry Hunters & Anglers would become and would shape our focus, making us the outspoken, fastest growing organization for our public lands, waters, and wildlife habitat that we are today.

Our hunting heritage depends on healthy populations of wild game. Habitat is fundamental to supporting these populations, and it is incumbent upon us as sportsmen and women to be outspoken advocates for protecting it. We are losing this habitat every day. Subdivisions, roads, trails and energy fields are being steadily developed to meet the demands of a population expected to nearly double in size by 2050. Since 2001, Colorado has lost more than half a million acres of habitat, nearly the size of Rhode Island. The habitat we’re losing is widespread – leading to increasingly fragmented landscapes on which wildlife depend. This change has been incremental, but ceaseless – difficult to recognize at times but very real and deserving of our attention.

Development of wildlife habitat is impacting migration routes, oftentimes altering the course of these historic routes and sometimes cutting them off altogether. For wildlife such as a mule deer with a strong fidelity to historic migration routes, these changes can take a significant toll – severely limiting movement between critical ranges, the food and refuge they provide, and putting them and other game species on a collision course along our highways and roadways. This can limit mule deer access to food and refuge, concentrating populations into smaller and smaller areas and creating barriers to movement.

If not properly planned and mitigated, such development can depress native populations of wildlife like mule deer.  As hunters, anglers and conservationists, we have a duty to help advance commonsense solutions that help ensure our wildlife continues to thrive alongside human development.  Colorado hunters, anglers and decision makers have worked to advance policy solutions and funding mechanisms that ensure wildlife habitat conservation is at the forefront of land use planning decisions in the state.

What Does This Executive Order Do?

While the EO doesn’t formally designate protections for migration corridors, it does take a number of positive steps to support and direct Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Department of Natural Resources, the Colorado Department of Transportation and other important stakeholders to better protect migration corridors moving forward.

• The EO directs CPW to gather the best available science and to lead public outreach and education efforts around seasonal habitat and migration corridors. This will enable CPW to fill in data gaps and identify the biggest threats facing wildlife habitat and migration corridors. This also will allow CPW to better understand the current functionality of habitat and migration corridors, allowing for the strategic prioritization of habitat and corridor protections where they are needed most. The EO also directs CPW to identify potential sources of funding to support research and implementation.
• The EO directs DNR to identify opportunities to ensure the ongoing conservation of seasonal habitat and migration corridors. This means that DNR will be considering migration corridors in new and existing agency policies and permitting processes moving forward. This also means DNR will be working with private land owners and neighboring states to protect seasonal habitat and migration corridors.
• The EO directs CDOT to enable safe wildlife passage and to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and to incorporate the maintenance of wildlife migration into all levels of its planning process. This is a great step. Wildlife crossings will play a key role in maintaining and improving the functionality of migration corridors impacted by roadways and highways in Colorado. This EO also directs CDOT to actively seek partnerships and financial support outside of the agency to effectively implement these conservation measures.
• The EO directs CPW and CDOT to enter into a memorandum of understanding by the end of 2019 to access current processes and practices, identify new opportunities to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions and to restore, conserve, and protect migration corridors across public roadways. Both CDOT and CPW are directed to identify prioritize areas for crossings based on the best available science.

Our ability to protect migration corridors in Colorado was recently strengthened by Secretarial Order (SO) 3362 in February of 2018. This order provides basic guidelines to support collaborations between the federal, government, states, and private landowners; it prioritizes the use of the best available science, and it helps identify funding to support this work.

This is a great step for Colorado, and BHA looks forward to working with our state, agency and community partners to move this work forward. Whether we’re partnering with community outreach efforts with CPW, contributing to citizen science, or showing up to advocate for wildlife habitat, the Colorado Chapter of BHA will be there.

We need your help. If you’d like to volunteer or get involved please contact us!

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