The silence is haunting.
Charlie Meyers’ former editor wrote those words this week to mark the passing of one of Colorado’s true conservation heroes. Colorado’s wildlife has lost its great defender.
We were privileged to know Charlie in many roles: as a fellow journalist, a mentor, as a skilled outdoorsman and champion of inconvenient issues — and sometimes as a sharp critic of the agencies we came to represent.
But this man, this newspaperman, Charlie Meyers, knew of what he spoke.
Charlie joined The Post in the 1960s as a sportswriter. A strapping athlete, he distinguished himself as a ski writer. But his most important legacy was as an unapologetic advocate for what he called “Colorado’s true, and enduring, economic treasure”: our wildlife.
There has never been and there may never be anyone who writes as doggedly and as well for so many eyes about Colorado’s wild things, her wild places and the things that threaten them.
Like many Coloradans, Charlie was a transplant, and he promoted the glories of Colorado’s outdoors with the zeal of a convert. He was for many of us a guide to our state’s most special places.
Yet Charlie was equally a scrapper, and tough as an old board. He could not be cowed by politics or influence. He delighted in afflicting those he saw as harming habitat or abusing our wildlife heritage. There was no fight he would not pick, no politician he would not challenge, no economic pillar he would not pillory.
And pillory again.
“He always supported wildlife, though he didn’t always agree with what the division was doing,” said Perry Olson, who came up through the Division of Wildlife ranks to become director. “He stood up against powerful forces that wanted to limit our ability to manage wildlife. He came to the rescue of the division and of wildlife on many occasions.”
“He was typical Westerner,” said Steve Torbit, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Rocky Mountain office. “He was irascible, but he understood the bottom line is we need good habitat in order to have healthy wildlife.”
Impatience was one of Charlie’s finest qualities.
This led him to inflict himself on various incoming directors of Colorado natural resource agencies — sometimes before they had even taken office. Russ George recalls how he had yet to transition to head the DOW Wildlife when Charlie demanded “time to get acquainted.”
“You had to respect his passion,” said George. “Even though he had strong views and would often start our conversations with his conclusion — funny, how that is — I never felt he was sandbagging me.”
Charlie’s columns were not for the squeamish. Invariably, something feathered, furred or finned died — or at least fought for its life. His wore his disdain for “antis” on his sleeve.
As the possessor of full Bubba cred, Charlie’s gentle admonitions and encouragements to sportsmen carried a special weight.
“Charlie knew how important it was for sportsmen to be conservationists. It’s at the core of where we come from,” said Ed Dentry, the Rocky Mountain News’ venerable sporting columnist, whose friendly rivalry with Charlie will surely be remembered as the golden age of Colorado outdoor writing.
“He had a big role in changing the hook-and- bullet redneck into a responsible citizen concerned about the environment.
“He was the only outdoor writer I read constantly.”
Charlie never smoked a day in his life, so the diagnosis of lung cancer struck as a profound injustice. He endured the arduous treatment regimes with stoicism. As he fought on, Charlie wrapped himself around his work the way a hooked fish will wrap the line around a sunken limb, figuring if it can anchor itself in the current, it just might defy fate.
About a year ago, after the course of Charlie’s illness was well advanced, wildlife advocate Bill Dvorak took Charlie to North Park to talk about the threat of oil and gas development to the fishery.
“We spent the night there and Charlie is up and down like a yo-yo, not breathing well and generally feeling miserable, getting almost no sleep,” Dvorak recalled. “He still goes on our trip the next morning, has a long chat with the DOW folks and takes an over-flight, but begs off for the road tour so he can go home and write.”
The resulting column was a classic Charlie amalgam of lyrical exaltation and unsparing criticism.
“I just don’t think we’re ever going to be able to replace that kind of dedication to our sport.”
As two former environment reporters, we know the outdoor writer is as important to a Western newspaper as any. It’s the outdoor writer who connects people to place, a perspective too often lost in our public discourse.
And in Charlie, we had a champion who was supremely knowledgeable, totally committed and had the complete support of his editors.
Charlie exemplified the very best of journalism. He kept us informed. He challenged the mighty. And he spoke for the voiceless — in this case, for Colorado’s wildlife.
Theo Stein, a former Denver Post reporter, is communications director for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Todd Malmsbury, a former Boulder Daily Camera reporter, is the retired chief of public information for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
