Colorado's oil boom is a bust for some hunters

A corner of northwest Colorado where drilling is booming is becoming a bust for hunters.

In 1990, there were more than 4,500 mule deer living in a unit near the state border with Wyoming, and in 2009 there were just a little more than 1,500 in that same unit, according to Steve Torbit, who at the end of this week will retire as the National Wildlife Federation’s executive director for the region.

The loss of two thirds of the game unit's population during that span triggered a dramatic drop in the number of mule deer harvested, from 839 in 1989 to 48 in 2008, Torbit said in an interview with Real Aspen.

But while hunting is down, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are up like never before.

Since the summer of 2010, more than 85 drilling permits have been approved in Moffat County and more than a dozen more are pending, according to Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records. There are about 50 energy companies tapping into the Niobrara formation, where oil and gas are buried several thousand feet below the high plains that straddle the Colorado and Wyoming borders.

A recent study that for the first time reviewed population trends, hunter-harvest reports and licenses sales from Colorado and Wyoming over the last 30 years concluded that drilling and other human activities are killing and chasing off deer and pronghorn antelope in the two states. The animals are losing critical habitat they have historically relied on to survive phenomenons of drought, weather and disease. The result has been a slow, inexorable decline in populations of both species, the study found.

“One of the things we are concerned about is we see a lot of development that characterizes itself as good for jobs and good for the economy, but never is there a conversation about the direct impact it has on wildlife, nor is there a conversation about how it impacts funding for agencies like the Colorado Division of Wildlife,” said Torbit, noting that fewer permits for the area can be sold to hunters.

“The little towns get hurt too. There aren't as many hunters there to buy gas, to buy groceries, to stay in hotels and do all those things that hunters do to help the economies of these little towns,” he said.

Usually deer and pronghorn recover quickly to herd declines brought on by drought, fire and natural disasters. During a drought in the 1980s, big-game populations in Yellowstone National Park suffered severe declines when it lost habitat to the largest fire in the park’s recorded history. But within two years, the game populations sprung back to life thanks to more moisture and improved habitat, according to wildlife managers.

Environmentalists and hunters are calling on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to more closely consider how oil and gas drilling, wind farms, agricultural practices and other human encroachments can permanently scar wild landscapes and the creatures that have traditionally flourished in them.

Forty years ago, biologists say, hunters could see hundreds of sage grouse in a single day. But these days, fossil fuel development in the West has wiped out much of their range and put the North American birds, which numbered 16 million a century ago, on the brink of extinction with a sage grouse population that now may be as few as 200,000.

“As a Westerner, biologist and hunter, I don’t want to see that same decline occur in our mule deer and pronghorn,” Torbit said.

River Name / Location	Stream flow, ft3/s	Gage height ft
Gore Creek
At Upper Station, Near I-70 Twin Bridges	n/a	5 ft
Booth Creek	n/a	4 ft
Abv Red Sandstone Creek At Vail	199	6 ft
At Mouth Near Minturn	231	7 ft
Beaver Creek
At Avon	21	2 ft
Lake Creek
Near Edwards	79	1 ft
Cross Creek
Near Minturn	97	4 ft
Homestake Creek
At Gold Park	127	5 ft
Eagle River
East Fork Eagle River Near Climax	n/a	2 ft
At Red Cliff	30	3 ft
Near Minturn	231	4 ft
Wastewater Treatment Plant At Avon	671	5 ft
Below Gypsum	799	5 ft
Colorado River
Near Kremmling	396	4 ft
Near Dotsero	1,620	3 ft
Below Glenwood Springs	3,200	5 ft
Near Cameo	3,650	6 ft
Below Grand Valley Div Nr Palisade	2,200	5 ft
Near Colorado-utah State Line	4,080	4 ft
Near Cisco, Ut	4,160	3 ft
At Lees Ferry, Az	12,200	9 ft
Near Grand Canyon, Az	11,700	8 ft
Yuma Main Canal Ww At Yuma, Az	997	10 ft
Roaring Fork River
Abv Lost Man Cr Near Aspen	n/a	n/a ft
Ab Difficult C Nr Aspen	53	1 ft
Near Aspen	77	1 ft
Near Emma	464	6 ft
At Glenwood Springs	1,150	3 ft
Hunter Creek
Near Aspen	59	2 ft
At Aspen	49	4 ft
Frying Pan River
Near Ruedi	111	2 ft
Crystal River
Abv Avalanche Crk, Near Redstone	628	2 ft
Arkansas River
Ef Arkansas R At Us Highway 24, Nr Leadville	47	3 ft
Near Leadville	84	5 ft
Below Empire Gulch Near Malta	156	3 ft
Below Granite	453	4 ft
Near Nathrop	451	4 ft
At Parkdale	469	3 ft