From the brink of extinction, black-footed ferrets have reclaimed some of the landscape across the plains of eastern Colorado thanks to a partnership between CPW and USFW. Here, students from a local elementary school were able to participate in the release of ferrets one day late in 2022.
With help from a local elementary school, CPW and USFW were able to reintroduce 15 black-footed ferrets to the landscape of southeastern Colorado in late 2022.
In the years following their rediscovery in the 1980s, only seven of the 18 known black-footed ferrets in the world were capable of breeding. But thanks to conservation efforts across multiple communities, agencies and organizations, estimates now range between 500 and 700 in the wild across the western plains.
Because these ferrets have the largest canine tooth-to-skull ratio of any mammal, biologists are careful to use tongs and gloves when releasing them into their new burrows.
One black-footed ferret typically needs about 100 acres of healthy prairie dog habitat to thrive.
A black-footed ferret takes in the last few moments of sunlight on its first night in the wild.
Guanella Pass is home to the largest known wintering population of white-tailed ptarmigan in Colorado. As winter recreation has become more popular in this area, CPW has launched a project to evaluate the efficacy of occupancy surveys that can be used to distinguish a change in the distribution of white-tailed ptarmigan found in winter core habitats caused by recreational activities over time.
CPW Biologist Lance Carpenter (center) goes over a team’s survey plots for the morning.
Two surveyors dwarfed by the surrounding landscape of Guanella Pass.
Surveyors carry tape measures to gather an average height of any exposed willow branches, the buds from which are a white-tailed ptarmigan’s primary source of food during the winter months.
These surveys involved snowshoeing through deep snow across various terrain at 11,500 feet for about seven or eight miles.
For most bird tracks, you’ll notice three toes in front and one in back. The same goes for ptarmigan, but in the snow, the hind toe is so small it can be hard to spot. These tracks can be seen meandering through a willow flat as the birds searched for willow buds, their primary food source in the winter.
Walleye might not be native to Colorado, but anglers love them. Now, each spring during the spawn, CPW aids in fertilizing more than 100 million eggs that will hatch and be released in over 70 different lakes and reservoirs across Colorado and nearby states.
Eggs are squeezed into a dry pan before adding milt and water and then stirred with a goose feather for 90 seconds. An anti-clumping liquid mud is added and eggs are stirred for another 90 seconds — this ensures each egg receives adequate amounts of oxygen for development.
Eggs are then rinsed and cleaned and allowed to harden before being loaded into coolers and trucked to a hatchery.
Eggs are at the hatchery for about 10 to 14 days in climate-controlled tubes and tanks. The black dots you see within the eggs are the eyeballs of young yolk-sac larva. Once they develop mouths and are capable of feeding by themselves, they are called fry.
Aquatic Biologist Paul Winkle takes a look at about 100,000 walleye fry before releasing them into the reservoir from where they left as eggs.
Each of the white styrofoam coolers contains a bag of about 100,000 walleye fry. On this particular day of release, there were 27 coolers for a total of around 2.7 million fry.