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Final plan creates consistency between federal and state jurisdictions for oil and gas development within high priority big game habitat, sets the table to reduce impacts from renewable energy and recreation development
Today, the Colorado Bureau of Land Management published its Proposed Final Resource Management Plan Amendment for Big Game Habitat Conservation that aligns oil and gas management with State of Colorado big game conservation policies. Colorado BLM manages 8.3 million acres of land for multiple uses, such as oil and gas development, renewable energy development, ranching, and recreation opportunities such as hunting, fishing, camping, rafting, and hiking. A significant portion of these lands – approximately 6.3 million acres– is also high priority habitat for Colorado’s elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep populations.
“Consistency between federal and state oil and gas regulators is good business, and it’s good policy,” said Madeleine West, director of the Center for Public Lands with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The BLM’s programmatic approach to state-wide planning has proved an efficient and effective way to align with state regulation to conserve Colorado’s iconic big game species and other wildlife. The BLM is on the right track with this plan, and we encourage them to similarly consider conservation of big game in their future management decisions beyond oil and gas.”
“As ungulate herds face daunting challenges from an array of uses on Colorado’s public lands, it is vital that BLM take these additional management actions to address oil and gas siting and development and lessen the pace of fragmentation to crucial habitats,” said Suzanne O’Neill, Executive Director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation.
“Providing safeguards for crucial big game habitat by creating continuity and clarity between how the state of Colorado and the BLM manage these areas makes sense on numerous levels,” said Aaron Kindle, director of sporting advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation. “It is a welcome outcome that took years of hard work by sporting conservation partners and the agencies. We look forward to seeing improved outcomes for big game herds in Colorado.”
The State of Colorado has prioritized intact habitat and migration corridor conservation for many years, including through Governor Polis’s Executive Order D 2019 011 “Conserving Colorado’s Big Game Winter Range and Migration Corridors” and through promulgation of new guidelines at the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission in 2020. The ECMC protocols established clearer expectations for development of oil and gas resources in the most sensitive wildlife habitats in Colorado.
The proposed final plan would amend management plans for 12 field offices to set a density limitation for greater than one active oil and gas location per square mile in big game high priority habitat and would require operators to develop and implement mitigation plans to minimize and offset direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse impacts. Through this plan, Colorado BLM is taking an important step to safeguard sensitive habitats critical to the long-term success of big game species, as well as other wildlife that utilize those habitats.
Prior to completion of this planning effort, companies that sought to develop oil and gas resources on federal land in Colorado had to follow federal leasing and permitting processes that could differ from one BLM-managed area to the next and from state permitting requirements administered by the ECMC.
This planning effort is now a model for how the BLM, and other land managers, can efficiently update plans and policies to facilitate responsible management of multiple uses on our public lands that conserve important fish and wildlife resources. The BLM is currently updating the 2012 Western Solar Plan to accommodate new science and technological advances across 11 Western states, including Colorado. Hunter, angler, and conservation organizations have called on the BLM to take a similar approach to ensure development impacts do not occur in the most sensitive big game habitat. The BLM’s proposed final Western Solar Plan revision is expected to be published this summer.
Similarly, the BLM is grappling with increased demand for recreation opportunities on the lands they manage. A 2020 report from Colorado Parks and Wildlife listed poorly-sited recreation infrastructure, such as trails for hiking and biking, as having the potential to fragment important big game habitats if not managed properly. In 2022, the TRCP released an analysis showing that 40% of Colorado’s most sensitive elk habitat is already impacted by recreational trails. Colorado’s Guide to Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind offers science-based recommendations for advancing recreational trail opportunities while maintaining viable wildlife habitat. The BLM has the opportunity to implement these State recommendations to reduce impacts to big game from new recreation infrastructure. Just last month, the U.S. Forest Service applied many of these management principles across 823,000 acres in the final Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests Plan.
Today’s announcement opens a 30-day protest period prior to the BLM signing a Record of Decision to finalize the plan.
Photo Credit: Larry Lamsa
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
A native Montanan, Wade Fellin has spent his life exploring, guiding, and stewarding the wild, trout-rich rivers of Montana’s Big Hole Valley. Concerned about the declining health of Montana’s wild trout fisheries due to climate change and other factors, Fellin has worked with Save Wild Trout to address the urgent need for conservation actions to preserve these vital natural resources and to coalesce a community around the shared values of clean water and vibrant, healthy rivers.
Here is his story.
My father joined the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam, and when he got back, he moved to Missoula, Montana in 1974. He worked as a security guard at the airport and on his lunch breaks, he hung out at the Streamside Angler, then owned by Frank Johnson and Rich Anderson. They gave him all the advice he needed to hone his skills as a fly fisher and he fished between shifts in a white shirt, tie, and black slacks on these rivers.
He headed to Aspen, Colorado in 1978 and guided for Chuck Fothergill. While in Aspen, Dad met my mom, a Bozeman native whose family helped found Wisdom, Montana on the upper Big Hole, and they decided to start a fly-fishing lodge. In 1983, with Fothergil’s blessing, they headed north through Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana searching for their perfect spot and founded their business on the banks of the Wise River, just up from the Big Hole River. Back then the caddis hatches looked like snowstorms. The salmon fly hatches were so thick cars would slide driving through the canyon. At that time, there were very few people on the water.
I came along in the summer of ’88, the year of the Yellowstone fire. Mom and Dad strapped my bassinet to their 14’ Avon raft and fishing was just part of life. I spent my childhood exploring the Wise River with a fly rod and my teens rowing the Big Hole and surrounding rivers. Now, with 18 years of guiding under my belt, I’m partnered with my father in a business he has spent 40 years nurturing. But now, the future of Montana’s wild trout fisheries is uncertain, and the rivers need all the help they can get.
My most memorable outdoor adventure served to fuel my drive to help ensure that Montana’s natural resources are here for future generations to enjoy. About six years ago, I met a friend at Bridger Bowl after a big snowstorm. We hiked to the ridge from the top of the chairlift and traversed out to a run we’d skied since we were kids. He dropped in first, into the couloir, under the cliffs, and out of sight. I dropped in and turned hard at the end of the chute to slide out over a fresh run. Unseasonably warm weather the week before opened the snowpack to a ground spring, or a melt-out, below the cliff invisible under two feet of new snow. I hit the outer wall of the crevasse hard and fell backward, upside-down and snow collapsed in with me. Everything was dark and I couldn’t breathe. For the first time in my life, I considered that I had lived my entire life. Then adrenaline and sheer will took over and I inched my way to a clear airway. To that point I’d taken my life in the outdoors for granted, as if it’d always be there. And naively, that I’d be here for a long time. So as long as I am here, I’m going to do what I can to make sure the rich outdoors heritage of Montana is here too.
The Big Hole Valley and the Big Hole River holds an important place in my heart having spent most of my life fishing and hunting this valley. As Edward Abbey said, “it’s not enough to protect the land, you must also enjoy it.”
Without conservation, none of us will have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors the way we do now. You don’t have to look far to find an organization working toward a healthy outdoors future and it really doesn’t matter which one you join – they all need your help, and we all need their work.
Climate change exacerbates everything affecting our fisheries. It was encouraging to hear Gov. Gianforte and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks identify warmer water temperatures combined with low flows as the primary drivers behind the southwest Montana trout declines. Adding elevated levels of nutrient pollution to those conditions becomes a deadly mix of aquatic life and wild trout. We must come together to address this shared challenge. The decline of wild trout in southwest Montana’s cold-water fisheries isn’t something new. We’ve been tracking the downward trend with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and our partners at the Big Hole River Foundation, and we have been raising concerns for over half a decade. It’s just that now we’ve hit a make-or-break point with population numbers at, or near, historic lows with the prospect of the fishery making a recovery now in our hands. I still have hope that after this winter’s already record-breaking warmth and low snowpack, we can put down our differences to coalesce around our shared values of clean water and vibrant, healthy rivers. There is more that unites us than divides us, so let’s acknowledge our shared challenge and get to work protecting the resources that provide for our way of life and livelihoods.
This isn’t about me, the lodge, or fly fishing, for that matter. This is about us, our communities, and what they will look like next year, the year after that, and for future generations. We like to say Montana is “Next-Year-Country,” and I’d argue, particularly in southwest Montana, we are snowpack country. Snowpack sustains our limited clean water resources, and it is the foundation that drives nearly every aspect of our economy and well-being. When we set out to launch Save Wild Trout it was abundantly clear that our mission was simple: To protect wild trout now and for future generations. The values and connection to our waters and lands provided to me through fly fishing, hunting, and the outdoors is an opportunity I want my kids to have and enjoy.
Conservation, hunters, and anglers go together like a hand in a glove. Much of the work to protect and conserve our lands, waters, and wildlife was and continues to be borne out of the hunting and angling communities. The next generation must carry the conservation mantle forward, and there are few better ways than getting them out hunting on public lands or in a boat fishing public water. It’s the values that were passed down to me from my father and something I’ll pass on to my son. How we respond to this crisis and address the new reality of climate change in our fisheries management paradigms can be and should be a success story for future conservationists.
Do you know someone “In the Arena” who should be featured here? Email us at info@trcp.org
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
Appearing before the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources, TRCP director of water resources Alexander Funk encouraged lawmakers to quickly pass a bipartisan Farm Bill to address drought and climate impacts in western states.
On Wednesday June 26, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership was honored by the opportunity to participate in a field hearing focused on the important role of the Farm Bill in advancing drought solutions held by the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry, and Natural Resources.
“The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership thanks Senators Bennet and Marshall for convening a timely subcommittee hearing on the important role of the Farm Bill in advancing innovative drought solutions,” said Alexander Funk, TRCP’s director of water resources. “Drought impacts a wide range of fish and wildlife highly valued by hunters and anglers from trout to mule deer. Quickly passing a bipartisan Farm Bill that includes provisions that increase the pace and scale of voluntary, incentive-based drought resilience efforts is critical given the ongoing water-supply challenges facing western watersheds such as the Colorado River and Rio Grande.”
For many years, TRCP has worked with elected officials and state, Tribal, and federal agencies to support partnerships, policies, and funding that support critical investments in modernizing Western water infrastructure and nature-based solutions that enhance climate resilience and sustain healthy habitat for fish and wildlife. As part of the 2018 Farm Bill, the TRCP was instrumental in securing important victories for the Colorado River, including expanding eligibility for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to include watershed-scale conservation and restoration projects and ensuring drought resilience is a key priority for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, despite the promise of this change, there have been significant challenges with implementation. Funk’s testimony focused on the long-time bipartisan support for this work and the need for Congress to quickly pass a bipartisan Farm Bill. This would ensure funding and technical assistance are available to increase the pace and scale of innovative drought adaptation and mitigation efforts benefitting agriculture, fish, and wildlife.
“The Farm Bill can play a vital role in addressing drought and climate impacts in western states and can do so through a “multi-title” approach, meaning that beyond the Conservation Title, there are opportunities with the Forestry, Research, Rural Development, and other titles to address key water-related challenges,” said Funk. “For example, most Westerners receive their water from forests. Forests are home to our natural water infrastructure – the source watershed streams, wetlands, and meadows that sustain drinking and irrigation water across the West. The Farm Bill presents an opportunity to enhance the conservation and restoration of these headwater forests through efforts such as strengthening the Water Source Protection Program, which allows the USFS to enter into agreements with water users to develop and implement source water plans and actions from fuels management to riparian restoration efforts, and the Watershed Condition Framework which provides for strategic restoration of forest watersheds.”
Funk also highlighted how the Conservation Title can play a greater role in addressing drought conditions, and that there are several opportunities to support western farmers and ranchers. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), for example, can help address drought by restoring perennial cover on environmentally sensitive agricultural land, which reduces water loss to evaporation, and increases water infiltration. This same cover provides essential wildlife habitat and improves water quality. Improvements to the CRP in the next Farm Bill are needed to ensure these outcomes can be achieved.
Stressing the need for increased collaboration, Funk highlighted how, in early 2023, the USDA released a Western Water and Working Lands Framework that outlined the challenges and conservation approaches needed to support western farmers and ranchers, including modernization of irrigation infrastructure, improving water forecasts’ reliability, and restoring streams and wetlands. But, unlike other targeted USDA frameworks, the Western framework still lacks the dedicated resources needed to support implementation and encouraged Congress and USDA to continue working collaboratively to ensure adequate resources and capacity are available to implement these existing measures.
In closing, Funk emphasized that the TRCP and our hunting and fishing community partners stand ready to work with Congress to craft a Farm Bill for agriculture, fish, and wildlife.
Watch Funk’s testimony HERE
Learn more about the Farm Bill HERE.
Learn more about TRCP’s commitment to healthy habitat and clean water HERE.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
Many aquatic invasive species (AIS) are causing harm to American fisheries and affecting recreational fishing, from flora like hydrilla and hyacinth to fauna like zebra mussels and Asian carp. For this reason, TRCP and its partners convened an AIS commission in 2022. But not all AIS issues can be targeted by anglers, and fewer still are good to eat. We narrowed the list to TRCP’s top four AIS species for anglers because they are fun to catch and good to eat, and our fisheries benefit when we remove them.
If you decide to pursue any of these fish, search for the competitions set up to incentivize their removals. And even if you elect not to eat them, if you ever catch them in locations where they are considered problematic and are not protected, remember that it’s best to not return them to the water.
Take some regular old freshwater fish and Frankenstein it – giving it the head and elongated body of a serpent, the teeth of a wolf, and the abilities to wriggle over land and survive out of water for more than a day – and you have yourself a northern snakehead. Native to China, Russia, and the Korean Peninsula, these bizarre, air-breathing fish probably became established in the U.S. after aquarium owners and others intentionally released unwanted specimens into local waterways. These aggressive top predators can outcompete native fish for food, with adults consuming smaller fish, crustaceans, reptiles, amphibians, and even some birds. Anglers prize them for their explosive strikes and delicious filets. While now established in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay regions, as well as in Arkansas (and recently spreading from there to the Mississippi River), they’ve also been detected in other states like California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, but have no established populations there.
While a native species in the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Rio Grande river basins, blue catfish were introduced in the Chesapeake Bay area in the 1970s. As an apex predator that can thrive even in brackish waters and grow to more than 100 pounds, their population eventually exploded and they are now wreaking havoc on local ecosystems by eating a wide range of important native species in the Bay region, including menhaden, herring, striped bass, and blue crabs. Blue catfish can be found even far up Nanticoke River tributaries in Delaware, and are present in many Southeastern states, where they are considered more naturalized and populations have not exploded like they have in the Mid-Atlantic. Even if blue cats are native where you live, they’re still worth targeting for their sheer potential size and deliciously mild, firm flesh. There’s so good to eat, in fact, that a commercial industry now targets them in the Chesapeake Bay region to supply local restaurants and markets.
An attractive, audacious, and venomous marine species native to Indo-Pacific coral reefs, lionfish were first detected in U.S. waters off Florida roughly 40 years ago. It’s thought that people also inexplicably have released them from home aquariums into the Atlantic Ocean multiple times since. (A good reminder that people should never release any pets into the wild!) They have now unfortunately spread throughout the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean from New England to Texas and the Bahamas to the Greater Antilles. Their heaviest concentrations are in Florida, the Keys, and most Caribbean islands, with detections even having occurred in the saltwater portions of the Everglades – as if South Florida and the Everglades didn’t have enough invasive species problems to deal with already. Lionfish have become a serious problem because they gorge on dozens of species of juvenile reef fish that would ultimately grow to be bigger fish we like to catch. They can eat prey more than half their own length; have no real predators in the Western Hemisphere; and compete for food with important sportfish like snapper and grouper. Despite having venomous spines (which are painful, but not deadly), the flesh is perfectly safe to eat.
Though most coveted trout species are actually considered invasive in at least parts of the U.S., they have long been established and often support economically important fisheries. However, some trout species in some areas are considered more destructive than valuable, so fisheries managers are working to eradicate them. The Yellowstone National Park region is home to non-native rainbows, browns, and brookies, but it’s the lake trout that are a problem. Both lake trout and native cutthroat trout are found in Yellowstone Lake, the largest high-elevation lake in North America, with lake trout both preying on and competing with cutthroats. A single lake trout can eat dozens of cutthroat trout every year, and this loss of the native fish is contributing to declines in many other wildlife species. In Yellowstone Lake, park regulations actually require anglers to keep or at least dispatch all lake trout they land. Added good news is that you’ll probably also be able to catch (and release) some big cutthroats when you’re out there.
TRCP recently worked with Yamaha Rightwaters, YETI, the American Sportfishing Association, Bass Pro Shops, and other partners on an AIS commission to address the need for better prevention and mitigation of aquatic invasive species. The commission’s final recommendations, finalized in 2023, included the need to modernize federal law and policy, increase targeted funding, maintain fishing access, and increase public education. See the full Aquatic Invasive Species Commission report here.
A special thanks to Noah Bressman, an assistant professor and AIS expert at Salisbury University, for helping confirm information for this blog, and for providing the snakehead photo in the banner image.
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
$4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue their efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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