The Bureau of Land Management today announced it is closing portions of federal lands in the Gunnison Basin to motorized use to avoid traumatizing already stressed populations of deer, elk, big horn sheep and pronghorn antelope affected by deep snows and minus 35 temperatures.
“While we can’t control the weather, we can control human disturbance,” BLM Field Manager Kenny McDaniel said. “We feel these temporary closures to motorized use are necessary to avoid increasing the stress these animals are already dealing with.”
Areas closed to motorized vehicles, including snowmobiles, are:
– North of Highway 50 between Dillon Mesa and West Antelope Creek.
– North of Highway 50 from east of Gunnison to the forest boundary east of Doyleville.
– South of Highway 50, east of Highway 114, north of Camp Kettle Gulch, and west of Razor Creek.
The temporary closures, which are effective immediately, will end on April 30.
State officials said last week that it was critical to the effort to help the wildlife that federal officials act to close the winter-time feeding areas on federal lands to snowmobiles.
McDaniel noted that while most of affected federal public lands lie north of Highway 50 in Gunnison County; some closures affect federal land in Saguache County.
The closures were prompted by the emergency feeding operations initiated by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, federal officials said.
McDaniel said that while the temporary closures apply to motorized use only, others going onto federal public lands – such as cross-country skiers – are asked to avoid disturbing the wildlife.
The snow in the basin has been deep, with 45 inches in many spots and drifts even deeper.
Late last week, many of the basin’s mule deer herd of 21,000 could be seen doggedly trying to leap over the snow. Small fawns and does in particular appeared exhausted and bucks, who had just finished the fall rut, are also vulnerable.
Over the weekend, DOW officials and a couple of hundred volunteers on Sno-Cats and snowmobiles fed the animals.
Officials said that the weekend push succeeded in feeding around 3,800 deer and 380 pronghorn antelope.
Both the mule deer and pronghorn are vulnerable during harsh winters, but especially the fleet-footed pronghorn, according to officials.
There is a pronghorn herd of about 600 in the basin. A harsh winter in the early 1980s wiped out most of the pronghorn herd, which has since slowly rebuilt.
The Sno-Cats have created mile-long trials of hardpacked snow that lead to feeding areas that have also been hardpacked. Feed is then brought to the feeding areas by snowmobile.
The DOW carries on aircraft reconnaissance flights to find out where the wildlife are situated and how ground crews can get to them.
The BLM’s order today comes in the wake of an order by Tom Remington, DOW director, closing much of the state lands in the Gunnison Basin through May 15 to wildlife-related recreation, including most hunting and the collection of shed antlers. Fishing is not affected.
Those wishing to contribute to the purchase of feed for the mule deer and antelope can go to the DOW’s website: and click on the donation button.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
