Note: Prior to Susan Spaulding’s talk, Alexander Howard will talk for ten minutes about his experience at the Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens Program at Hog Island. Alexander received a scholarship from BCAS to attend the program. Introduced to birding at the age of 7 by his dad, Alexander has since birded in Arizona, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, and Massachusetts, and kept records of his observations. He will speak about attending Hog Island birding camp, where he looked forward to improving his wildlife identification skills, especially seabirds off the Maine coast.
Boulder County Open Space, along with our partner departments of Transportation and Public Works, is pursuing implementation of wildlife crossing structures on US Highway 36 between Boulder and Lyons, specifically between Left Hand Canyon and US Highway 66. There are several reasons for our formalized pursuit of wildlife crossings. Boulder County has been concerned about the safety of the public and the wildlife due to the high level of annual wildlife-vehicle collisions in this stretch. As the primary landowner of the adjacent lands along this stretch, Boulder County is ready to take the steps necessary to address this issue, to protect wildlife and our residents and visitors.
Elk herd next to Highway 36, photo by Susan Spaulding.
As a County, we feel well-positioned to accomplish this project. Our Open Space wildlife biologists have been carefully tracking deer and elk movement patterns for many years. This has been achieved through a close working relationship with Colorado Parks and Wildlife district wildlife managers and area biologists. We have several years of elk collar data which have provided a clear understanding of annual elk movement patterns. These data also provide valuable information on the large-scale patterns of habitat use by elk from the plains to the continental divide.
Additionally, we have vetted the concept of wildlife crossings with our public through our 2020 Red Hill Elk Management Plan (BOCO, 2020) process, which emphasizes our intentions to pursue safe facilitation of wildlife across US Highway 36. The issue of this problematic stretch of US Highway 36 has also been highlighted by our 2020 Transportation Master Plan Update, which conducted a comprehensive analysis of wildlife-vehicle collisions in all of Boulder County. The results show that 40% of all wildlife collisions in the entirety of Boulder County occur in this stretch. So, while we’ve been acutely aware and concerned about this deadly stretch in our County, we were awaiting the results of the Eastern Slope and Plains Wildlife Prioritization Study (Jacobs, 2022) for statewide comparative context. This stretch of US Highway 36 is ranked in the top 5% of segments needing mitigative actions, and in fact, based on the study’s modeling inputs, this stretch received the highest score in the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) Region 4. The ESPWPS results were the final catalyst for Boulder County to move forward with pursuing an analysis of the corridor for crossing location considerations, prioritizations, strategies, and cost estimates.
Throughout this planning process, we’ve held several public meetings, developed a webpage, and have showcased our project via webinar participation. We will continue these outreach-focused efforts for the duration of the project by reaching out to landowners, public citizens, and local groups over the next weeks, months and years.
Susan Spaulding
Susan Spaulding is a wildlife biologist whose career started with field studies for federally threatened and endangered species including desert tortoise, northern spotted owl, and marbled murrelets. Her years of transient and delightful field work lead to a permanent biologist position with the U.S. Forest Service at the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. After several years, Susan moved back to her ‘native’ Colorado and started working for Boulder County Parks and Open Space as their Wildlife Program Supervisor. Currently she is developing a program that is focused on multi-jurisdictional collaborative projects, such as beaver habitat enhancements and beaver reintroductions, Preble’s meadow jumping mouse Federal Recovery Plan implementation, and wildlife crossings on US36 and Hwy 128. She earned her undergraduate degree in Environmental Population Organismic Biology at CU, and her graduate certificate in Geographic Information Systems at the University of Denver.
In-Person Gathering - BCAS welcomes everyone back to in-person programs at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder. Doors open at 7 PM for socializing and the program begins at 7:15. While the church is no longer requiring masks, we encourage you to wear your favorite high-quality mask, and we will provide free surgical masks for anyone who needs one. Please stay home if you feel sick, and watch the program on Zoom!
Online Gathering - The meeting room will open at 7:10, and the program starts at 7:15. Questions for the speaker will be taken from the chat feature of the Zoom session.
Online access info will be posted here by the day of the program.