Welcome to the October 2024 Keep Routt Wild Newsletter!

Hello, Keep Routt Wild followers!

For those unfamiliar with Keep Routt Wild, we are a community organization dedicated to preserving wildlife and wild places in Routt County. Our mission is to promote policies and practices for the benefit of conserving the Yampa Valley for future generations of outdoor enthusiasts by balancing opportunities for recreational development with the habitat needs of wildlife. We do this through education, engagement, and practicing conservation through informed science.

Articles for this month’s newsletter are:

·       Mad Rabbit Trails Project Update

·       New Report Highlights the Economic Value of Conservation

·       CPW Employee Organization Criticizes Proposition 127

·       Volunteers Build Picnic Tables at Dry Lake Campground

·       Keep Routt Wild Receives Grant from Yampa Valley Community Foundation

·       What we’ve been reading and watching

·       Quote of the Day

To find out more about Keep Routt Wild, go to our website, or follow our nearly daily postings on Facebook.

Mad Rabbit Trails Project Update

As of the date of this publication, the Mad Rabbit Trails Project is in the same state we reported on last month:

- Mad Rabbit NEPA is expected to be approved in the next two months, pending completion of an Adaptive Management Plan jointly developed by the Forest Service and CPW (Colorado Parks and Wildlife).

- The Adaptive Management Plan draft calls for building out Mad Rabbit in three phases, with gated checkpoints before proceeding to the next phase.

- It is unclear where the ongoing funding of the monitoring needed for the Adaptive Management Plan is coming from.

- Steamboat City Council has tentatively scheduled a meeting December 3 to determine whether $1.6M of 2A funds goes towards Mad Rabbit or towards trails within the city limits, such as expanding the Core Trail network. There is $2.2M in the 2A funds.

- The 2A Trails Committee has recommended funding Mad Rabbit trails with $1.6M of 2A funds. This includes three trails never authorized by the voters in 2013. Those three trails alone would cost the taxpayers more than $470,000.

- The Forest Service claims they will pursue the funding elsewhere to build Mad Rabbit if the City doesn’t fund it.

We have raised serious wildlife and environmental issues with the project, as discussed in previous newsletters. We’ve also highlighted that Referendum 2A, the source of city funds for Mad Rabbit, passed in 2013 due to support for expanding the Core Trail. The Referendum was explicitly promoted by promising that the Core Trail would be expanded. A Steamboat Pilot Referendum 2A editorial at the time stated, “Imagine the Yampa River Core Trail extending upstream all the way to Haymaker — 2A provides the funds the community needs to leverage outside grants and make that dream a reality.” This is what the voters were led to believe would occur. Nonetheless, funding has been prioritized for mountain biking trails instead to attract tourists.

We previously highlighted the proposal that the City fund three Mad Rabbit trails that were never approved by the voters when Referendum 2A passed. It uses a novel legal theory of "functional equivalence" to circumvent the will of the voters. So, not only are trails that were specifically approved by the voters (like the Core Trail extensions) not being recommended for funding, but trails never on the enumerated trail list are being recommended. One is a campground trail amenity for Meadows Campground! Anyone remember voting for that? Of course not. These three trails alone cost the taxpayers over $470,000. We’ve documented this issue in a slide set that shows maps of the trails here.

As a technical issue, once Mad Rabbit has been approved by the Forest Service, anyone can fund Mad Rabbit construction. In fact, District Ranger Michael Woodbridge told the Yampa Valley Bugle, “It doesn’t kill the project, we’d still have the decision on the books, but it could mean a slower implementation potentially.” He stated, “If that money did not go to the Mad Rabbit Trails Project, then we would be looking for other funding opportunities, grants and other funds that we have access to.”

So, if the Forest Service can fund Mad Rabbit regardless of what the City does, why should we fund it? It is equivalent to a $1.6M gift to the Forest Service. Does the City have so many excess funds that it can just throw $1.6M at a project that doesn’t require it? Not according to city staff and council members, the Yampa Valley Bugle reports. “Although revenue is expected to increase slightly, it is not keeping pace with the rising costs needed to provide our current service levels,” City Manager Gary Suiter told Council. The article states, “Steamboat Springs voters are likely to see multiple requests for new tax revenue in 2025.” Distributing $1.6M as a gift to the US Forest Service instead of spending 2A funds on known and approved trail networks within the city limits does not match with the fiscal situation city officials claim we are in. Throw in that $470,000 of funds were never approved by the voters at all, and the City Council risks its credibility if Council members choose to follow the recommendations of the 2A Trails Committee.

 This topic is scheduled to be discussed and decided at a City Council work session on December 3, though the date could change. You can make a difference! You can write to the City Council asking them to fund the Core Trail and associated network instead of Mad Rabbit at citycouncil@steamboatsprings.net

You would not only be defending wildlife and wild places, but you’d also be helping to build a Steamboat Springs for the future.

New Report Highlights the Economic Value of Conservation

A study conducted by Southwick Associates and Colorado State University for Colorado Parks and Wildlife estimates the economic contributions of outdoor recreational activity in Colorado during 2023. It estimates that outdoor recreation led to $52B of spending by residents and visitors in Colorado last year.

But here’s the surprise. Wildlife related activities, defined as fishing, hunting, and wildlife watching, now total $10.2B of spending annually in Colorado. This is larger than the entire Colorado ski industry! In fact, it is larger than all winter recreation activities combined, which total $8.25B. (Page 9). To be fair, the conglomeration of activities into a Trail/Road activity group was even larger at $17.4B, but the largest segment of that group was hiking/backpacking, activities that are also driven by conservation.

This should put an end to the argument that we must sacrifice our wildlife and wild places for recreation dollars. It is the opposite. Conservation is driving a huge economic benefit that stands alongside industry giants. You can read the entire report here.

Colorado Parks & Wildlife employee association criticizes ballot initiatives in first-of-its-kind resolution

Photo and article courtesy of Steamboat Pilot and Vail Daily

“While Colorado Parks & Wildlife is prohibited from taking a stance on ballot initiatives, a group of the agency’s employees is speaking out as Proposition 127 — a measure that would ban the hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx — heads toward a vote in November.”

“The Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association board signed a resolution on Oct. 9 expressing that decisions about wildlife should be left to Colorado Parks & Wildlife’s science-based professionals. The association represents around 200 current agency wildlife officers, biologists, wildlife technicians, aquatics staff, administrative assistants as well as education and outreach personnel. As a whole, Parks & Wildlife has over 1,000 employees, with its park employees represented by another association."

We agree. We’re a science-based conservation organization, so it goes almost without saying that we are in favor of science-based wildlife management, which means leaving these management decisions in the hands of the professionals at CPW. We’ve pointed out possible unintended consequences of the proposition in previous newsletters.

We love these big cats. These apex predators truly add the “wild” to the Routt County landscape. Nevertheless, Proposition 127 is misguided and counter to modern science-based wildlife management. We ask our followers to vote NO on Proposition 127 this November.

You can read more about Proposition 127, and why it is flawed, here.

Volunteers Build Picnic Tables at Dry Lake Campground

The Routt Recreation and Conservation Roundtable was formed to facilitate discussions and planning for balancing recreation and conservation. They convene to provide non-binding insights and recommendations to land managers engaged in recreational planning processes as well as recreational policy decisions in Routt County. There is a diverse set of members representing varying interests across the county. The wildlife conservation representative is Larry Desjardin from Keep Routt Wild.

Sometimes the Roundtable takes a break for a team building exercise. Such was the case on a beautiful Saturday in late September, where we convened to build picnic tables for the soon to be expanded and improved Dry Lake Campground on Buffalo Pass. It’s always a privilege to be in such a beautiful place.

Keep Routt Wild Receives Grant from Yampa Valley Community Foundation

We are grateful to have received a $4,800 grant from the Yampa Valley Community Foundation. Thank you YVCF!

We plan to use the funds to expand our outreach, and to update some equipment for indoor and outdoor events.

Keep Routt Wild has no staff or permanent employees and relies 100% on volunteers. This allows every dollar donated to go to our mission of preserving wildlife and wild places in Routt County for future generations. We implement our mission through education, engagement, and practicing conservation through informed science.

You can donate to Keep Routt Wild here. We hope that you keep us in mind for the upcoming Colorado Gives Day on December 6.

What we’ve been reading and watching

(Click on any title to read the article)

The U.S. Will Need a Lot of Land for a Zero-Carbon Economy

“Princeton University’s Net-Zero America Project maps various pathways to reaching a carbon-free U.S. by 2050, and how much land it would take. Their most land-intensive plan eliminates all fossil fuels and nuclear plants. Wind and solar provide 98% of electric power by 2050. The U.S. energy footprint quadruples in size. Wind farms occupy land areas equivalent to Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.”

“If the U.S. wants a carbon-free economy by 2050 using the least amount of land, it will need to rely far less on wind and solar and instead build hundreds of nuclear plants and natural gas plants outfitted with systems to capture the carbon dioxide before it escapes into the atmosphere.”

The Forest Service is cutting its seasonal workforce and public lands will suffer

“Due to a looming budget cut, the agency will not be hiring seasonal staff for the next fiscal year, leaving thousands of people out of work and putting essential conservation and biodiversity work at risk.”

District 1 Routt Commissioner candidates talk Stagecoach, housing, recreation in Bugle questionnaire
“The Yampa Valley Bugle asked Routt County Commissioner Candidates to answer eight questions about a variety of issues. Here's what they said.”

NEW: Here are the same set of questions and answers for the District 2 candidates.

5th Wolf Pup Has Not Been Captured

“CPW says it is the littermate of four other pups that were captured with the parents and taken to a facility, because of concerns over chronic depredations in the area. They were all members of the Copper Creek Pack, and the first litter to be produced in Colorado from two wolves that were reintroduced last December.”

Quote of the Day

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