S1E2: 1.2 - Fishers Peak State Park - Oct. 28, 2020

10/28/20 • 34 min

Colorado Outdoors - the Podcast for Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Fishers Peak is a new 19,200-acre state park in southern Colorado by Trinidad that connects grasslands to the east with foothills and mountains to the west, serving as a corridor for wildlife movement. For much of its modern history, the peak has been private property, part of a ranch that was off-limits to the public. But now it is owned by the state of Colorado. And when it opens on Friday, Oct. 30, it will be a place where visitors will be able to hike, hunt, mountain bike, watch wildlife and all the other activities that Colorado Parks and Wildlife properties have to offer.

Previous Episode

S1E1: 1.1 - Director Dan Prenzlow - State of the Union on Colorado's Outdoors - Oct. 22, 2020

On this introductory episode of CPW's podcast - Colorado Outdoors - we go in-depth with Director Dan Prenzlow on conservation and balancing that with the explosion in population and thirst for outdoor recreation in Colorado. Prenzlow mentions how the outdoors have been an outlet during COVID and how CPW focused on ‘managing to yes’ to be open to the citizens of Colorado during the pandemic. With that, CPW has seen park visitation hit record numbers and fishing and hunting license sales are up. Wildlife topics are discussed, as is the opening of Fisher’s Peak, the newest state park in Colorado.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

2:57 - background on Dan Prenzlow and how he became Director of CPW

5:45 - his perspective on being the Director

7:37 - talking about conservation - the “wise use” of our natural resources

8:42 - wildlife that we manage and restoring wildlife species

12:45 - ballot initiative on the restoration of Gray Wolves

14:45 - balance between conservation and outdoor recreation

21:37 - the outdoors have been an outlet during COVID in the state of Colorado

24:47 - fishing and hunting license sales are up

26:20 - a hunting story on how it took him 20 years to draw a mountain goat license

30:10 - why it is so important that people do not feed or try to domesticate wildlife

32:03 - bear conflicts and management

34:06 - Fishers Peak State Park opening

Next Episode

S1E3: 1.3 - Wildfire impacts on wildlife - Nov. 6, 2020

2020 has seen the two largest wildfires in Colorado history and over 600,000 acres have burned across the Centennial State. Along with many of the obvious concerns that come with fires of such magnitude, additional concerns have been expressed towards the effects on wildlife. In the episode of Colorado Outdoors, we'll dive right into the pros and cons of wildfire as it relates to wildlife, aquatic life and the health of our forests.

Providing us with the context will be senior wildlife biologist for CPW's northeast region Shannon Schaller, northeast region senior aquatic biologist Jeff Spohn and Casey Cooley, who is CPW's forest habitat coordinator.