I recently walked into the local BLM field office and asked what BHA could do to help them with habitat improvement projects and they were ecstatic. We immediately got this project on the books.
We had 11 BHA volunteers show up at 9am, Saturday March 29th, and after a safety briefing from the BLM field officer we hiked up nearly 2 miles to the northern end of the area. There we found a number of rolls of woven wire fence, T posts, and other fencing materials, along with about 1/3 mile stretch of dilapidated barbed wire fencing still up. A few folks went ahead and started hauling the pre-rolled fencing back to the parking area, while others went to pulling and winding up the barbed wire sections. There was a ton of wildlife sign in the area, mostly mule deer, but we did come across a set of fairly fresh lion tracks.
We worked for about 2 hours getting all the barbed wire fencing rolled up and hauled to the trail, then went off hauling everything we could carry back down to the parking area, again nearly a 2 mile trek. We then sat around shooting the breeze and enjoying a little picnic lunch supplied by BHA. The BLM field office is very grateful for our work and impressed how much we could get done and haul out so quickly. This was great gathering of folks from all over western and southern Colorado, with both local folks, and others from Pagosa Springs and Norwood making the journey to come help out. This is another example of the efforts we are willing to go to in order to improve our wildlife habitats by rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty and working hard. Thank you all who participated, and we look forward to doing many more!
About Jarret Childers