Hunters hoping to draw a big-game license in Colorado in 2021 are urged to review the changes in license requirements and fees prior to the March 1 opening of the application period (March 1 – April 6 at 8 p.m. MT). For a good overview of what’s in store, watch CPW’s “What’s New” video for the 2021 big-game seasons.

A Colorado Springs man who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor poaching charges in three counties likely will never legally hunt again in Colorado or 47 other states after a Colorado Parks and Wildlife hearing examiner permanently suspended his hunting privileges.

In December, Chuck and Lindy Chicowitz sold the whitewater rafting outfitter they started on the Upper Arkansas River in 1983. Noah’s Ark will now have two longtime employees at the helm.

As temperatures dipped rapidly Saturday evening, Chaffee County Search & Rescue-North and a Chaffee County Sheriff’s deputy were called to Browns Canyon National Monument to escort a group of hikers back to the trailhead.

Are you curious about our local wildlife? Join the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) for a virtual lecture, “A Wildlife Wander”, presented by Ryan Kempfer and Chris Kassar of Elk Raven Photography.

To protect wintering big-game animals and sage grouse species, collection of shed antlers on all public lands west of I-25 is prohibited from Jan. 1 through April 30.

Hunters interested in getting into the spring turkey season draw will need to apply with Colorado Parks and Wildlife by 8 p.m., Feb. 2.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife will host a free ice fishing clinic from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 13 at Hayden Meadows Reservoir, south of Leadville, on Lake County Road 10 off U.S. 24.

The event is free but limited to 20 participants.

Conservation biologists at Colorado Parks and Wildlife are charged with keeping a close eye on sensitive wildlife – animals that sometimes are classified as “species of greatest conservation need” by the agency. One of those species is the southern white-tailed ptarmigan.

While many fish diseases have declined in recent years due to good management practices, cases of bacterial kidney disease seem to be increasing in the western U.S.

Products are available from GARNA’s 6th Annual Photo Product Fundraiser including notecard sets, a 2021 calendar and canvas and metal prints.

Closed gates are no fun. There, I wrote it, the truth.

Chaffee County Search & Rescue–North rescued three exhausted hikers on Mount Belford Sunday evening.

Search and Rescue was paged out to the fourteener at about 5 p.m., Nov. 29. According to an update on CCSAR-N’s Facebook page, the hikers were without headlamps for nighttime hiking or adequate winter gear.

Chaffee County Search & Rescue–North rescued three exhausted hikers on Mount Belford Sunday evening.

Search and Rescue was paged out to the fourteener at about 5 p.m., Nov. 29. According to an update on CCSAR-N’s Facebook page, the hikers were without headlamps for nighttime hiking or adequate winter gear.

On Nov. 3, Coloradans voted to pass Proposition #114 - The Restoration of Gray Wolves, a measure directing the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop a plan to reintroduce gray wolves west of the Continental Divide. With this decision, the planning process for reintroduction will begin.

Chaffee County Search & Rescue–North is seeking to recruit new volunteers as the busy summer season closes.

Homeowners in the Chalk Creek drainage created more than 160 piles of slash in preparation for the Chaffee Chips neighborhood fire mitigation event taking place this weekend.

Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze issued stage 2 fire restrictions for unincorporated Chaffee County effective Monday morning.

The Bureau of Land Management has enacted Stage 2 Fire Restrictions for lands throughout Southern Colorado, including those in Chaffee County.

The announcement came on a windswept fall afternoon one day after the Cameron Peak Fire north of Rocky Mountain National Park grew to become the largest wildfire in state history, breaking a record that had been set just 48 days prior when the Pine Gulch Fire north of Grand Junction grew larger than the 2002 Hayman Fire.

When the Leadville 100 was cancelled this year due to COVID-19, 22-year-old Annie Hughes, a Buena Vista High School graduate who lives in Leadville and had been training for the ultramarathon, did the sensible thing and decided that she would run a course that was even longer and higher.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife received 3,644 bear reports from April 1 through Aug. 31, down slightly from the 3,855 during the same timeframe the previous year.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be conducting mandatory chronic wasting disease testing during the 2020 hunting season in specific Game Management Units as part of efforts to control the spread with its Colorado Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan.

Envision Chaffee County is hosting a resident and visitor survey to identify perceptions about outdoor recreation in Chaffee County. Go to http://bit.ly/CRS-2020 to take the 10-minute, online survey.

Buena Vista’s shoulder-season celebration 14erFest will not be held this year due to “too many uncertainties to juggle,” according to a Facebook post on the event’s page.

Envision Chaffee County is hosting a resident and visitor survey to identify perceptions about outdoor recreation in Chaffee County.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist Lance Carpenter and wildlife pathologist Karen Fox have initiated a study looking into a disease outbreak in mountain goats on the summit of Mount Evans.

The body of a Nathrop man who had been missing for 5 days after going hiking alone in the area of the Three Apostles was found last Wednesday, Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze reported.

In response to recent and forecasted precipitation across the western Front Range, the Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office is lifting fire restrictions on BLM-managed lands in three counties in central Colorado. Fire restrictions will be lifted on BLM lands in Lake, Chaffee, and Fremont counties effective July 30.

BLM, USFS decisions pending

Chaffee County Search and Rescue North, with assistance from CCSAR-South, REACH air medical services and Western Mountain Rescue, is searching for a missing Nathrop hiker in the area around the Three Apostles in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area.

CCSAR-N was dispatched Saturday to search for Terry Pann, 60, who was believed to have been hiking alone in the vicinity of the Three Apostles, having taken off from the Lake Ann trailhead near the ghost town of Winfield.

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service announced an amended management plan for the Browns Canyon National Monument Monday. The approved plan will guide the agencies’ oversight of recreation activities within the monument, while allowing for infrastructure that will help protect monument resources in anticipation of increased visitation and recreational use.