CPW to use low-flying helicopters to assess deer, elk, bighorn sheep and moose in southeast Colorado

Beginning Dec. 2, Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists will be conducting low-altitude helicopter flights to assess big game herds across the Southeast Region from Leadville to Trinidad and east of Interstate 25.

Flights to be conducted west of I-25 will involve both surveys of herds and some capture work. Those flights will occur in South Park, the Upper Arkansas River Valley, the Pikes Peak Region, the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the Wet Mountain Valley and Fishers Peak State Park in Trinidad.

On flights from Leadville to Cañon City, biologists will capture mule deer does and fawns to place radio-transmitting collars on them as part of a 26-year survival monitoring study.

Flights in the South Park area will include capturing elk as part of a study of elk survival and movement.

For the herd survey work, Southeast Region residents can expect to see helicopters that spend a short amount of time in a specific area and then move on as they search for herds. They will only hover long enough for wildlife biologists to count, determine sex of the animals and assess overall health. The flights provide important information to inform CPW wildlife biologists about individual herds.

“The helicopters will spend a brief amount of time in a specific area to count and categorize individual herds and then move on,” said Julie Stiver, senior wildlife biologist for CPW’s Southeast Region, based in Colorado Springs. “Each year, CPW biologists inventory tens of thousands of animals statewide to develop a picture of the productivity and composition of big game in Colorado. The data is critical to our work of forming population models, management strategies and to set future hunting license numbers.”

On the southeastern plains, helicopter surveys will be conducted in Kit Carson and Cheyenne counties followed by surveys in Kiowa, Prowers and Baca counties. CPW will be studying deer, elk, bighorn sheep and moose

CPW biologists also will fly along the Arkansas River and associated drainages from Pueblo to the Kansas state line. The biologists also will survey along the South Republican River drainage from Flagler to the Kansas state line.