remains binding law. It guarantees Ute hunting, fishing, and gathering rights off-reservation in Colorado and reflects a negotiated commitment that has never been abrogated by Congress.

Colorado recently enacted legislation granting free access to state parks for members of two of our sister signatory Tribes, while excluding the Ute Indian Tribe — descendants of bands that occupied what is today the state of Colorado from time immemorial. Most of the mountainous regions in Colorado are our ancestral homelands.

The governor essentially signed a law last year erasing us from Colorado history. It is a national disgrace, violating those guarantees and erasing the Ute Indian Tribe’s enduring history and presence on the very lands at issue.

The statute recognizes only the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and provides enrolled members of those Tribes free entrance to state parks. Yet the state’s enactment and enforcement of this statute ignore the Ute Indian Tribe and its history in the state, despite the reality that most lands covered by the statute fall within our ancestral homelands. When the Tribe asked to be included, state leaders offered reassurances — and then fell silent.

The Tribe delivered a formal letter requesting inclusion, warning that the bill, as drafted, would perpetuate the erasure of the Tribe and proposing amendments, but after an initial  acknowledgment from a bill sponsor, the Tribe never received a substantive response, and the bill passed without addressing its discriminatory impact. This exposes Polis’s failure as a leader.

This erasure is indefensible in light of the Brunot Agreement����ap text and history. All bands of our Tribe signed the Brunot Agreement of 1874, the same as the bands that now comprise the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

Congress ratified the Brunot Agreement on April 29, 1874. The Agreement has never been abrogated by Congress, nor has Congress expressed an explicit intent to do so. Its operative guarantee is unequivocal: “The United States shall permit the Ute Indians to hunt upon said lands so long as the game lasts and the Indians are at peace with the white people”.

Those rights run with the Ute people as signatories — every band. Because the Ute Indian Tribe signed the Brunot Agreement, we retain the same Brunot rights as the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute, and the state’s contrary treatment discriminates among signatories.

Colorado itself recognizes these off-reservation Brunot rights — but selectively. The legislative declaration of acknowledges that, pursuant to the Brunot Agreement, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe retain hunting, fishing, and gathering rights outside their reservations, including in areas that now encompass state parks.

The governor cannot lawfully elevate those Brunot rights for some Ute signatories while denying the same rights to others. The Agreement����ap legitimacy does not turn on which bands were later forced across an arbitrary state line.

This moment is inseparable from a longer history of genocide committed against my people. The Ute people are the oldest continuous residents of what is now Colorado, a fact even the recent bill acknowledges.

Yet after treaty upon treaty, removal supplanted recognition. In the wake of 19th-century treaties, federal and state actions culminated in the forcible relocation of most of Colorado’s Utes, and by June 1880, Congress required our Tribe to abandon its homelands and relocate to far smaller reservations in Utah, with removal executed at gunpoint the following year.

This was all against the backdrop of a concerted effort to drive us from our homelands. The rallying cry of the times, one perpetuated by newspapers and government agencies, was “The Utes Must Go!” Such coerced displacement did not — and could not — extinguish rights guaranteed by a still-valid agreement.

Indeed, in 1962 the Indian Claims Commission found the consideration paid under the Brunot Agreement so inadequate as to be unconscionable. The moral and legal imperative today is to honor, not erase, the rights that survived that injustice.

The stakes are legal, cultural, and spiritual. Hunting, gathering, and ceremonies connected to the Brunot lands are integral to Ute religious and cultural life, with the Ute people historically returning to familiar hunting and gathering areas year after year. To exclude the Ute Indian Tribe from access and recognition where those rights and practices endure compounds historical harm and repudiates the very text of the Agreement the State purports to respect.

Gov. Polis should correct course immediately, or he should step down as governor. Recognize the Ute Indian Tribe’s status as a Brunot signatory; acknowledge its equal off-reservation rights; and ensure state policies, including park access and resource management, respect those rights on the same footing afforded to the other Ute tribes.

At a minimum, the administration should commit to formal consultation and amend current policies to include the Ute Indian Tribe wherever Brunot rights are implicated. Anything less continues the unlawful and discriminatory distinction the state has drawn among coequal treaty signatories.

Colorado can choose to lead — from acknowledgment to action. Honoring the Brunot Agreement across all Ute signatories is not only a legal necessity; it is a long-overdue step toward justice and reconciliation on the Ute homeland.

Shaun Chapoose is the chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. The Ute Indian Tribe resides on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah. Three bands of Utes comprise the Ute Indian Tribe: the Whiteriver Band, the Uncompahgre Band, and the Uintah Band. The Tribe has a membership of more than 3,000 people.

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The Chaffe County Sheriff’s Office said Kaden Sites’ body was found in the wilderness near Tabaguache Creek about 1.5 miles from where his truck was left. The sheriff’s office said on a Facebook post that his body was recovered by the Chaffee County Search and Rescue, the Chaffee County Coroner’s Office and the sheriff’s office.

Site’s family was notified. The cause of his death is under investigation. The sheriff’s office said foul play is not suspected.

“Our hearts go out to the Sites family and friends this evening. Chaffee County has lost a wonderful member of our community which has left a void in our hearts,” Chaffee County Sheriff Andy Rohrich said in a statement.

He thanked everyone who joined the effort to find Sites.

Dozens of first responders searched the mountains when Sites, who went turkey hunting the afternoon of April 15, didn’t return for an appointment. His family found his truck near the Blanks Cabin Trailhead. The sheriff’s office said his phone was inside with the battery drained.

Search teams from across the state looked for Sites. People used dog teams, drones, helicopters, airplanes as well as searching the area by foot.

went hunting for turkeys on Mount Shavano at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday and had planned to return to town for an appointment at 3:45 p.m., the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on Facebook.

When he did not show up for the appointment, his family found his truck near the Blanks Cabin Trailhead. His phone was inside with the battery drained, sheriff’s officials said.

Search teams from across the state responded to begin looking for Sites, including dog teams, drones, helicopters, airplanes and crews on foot.

There were 80 people out searching for Sites as of Saturday morning, including more drone teams and mules, the sheriff’s office said.

In a statement, Sheriff Andy Rohrich asked community members to avoid the area and not to search for Sites independently after several people went to the area Friday and slowed down search crews.

“We appreciate all the community’s support and willingness to jump in and help, but we do not want our team’s attention on anything other than finding Kaden,” Rohrich said.

Sites is described as white, 6-foot-2 and 160 pounds with light brown hair, a goatee and mustache. He was last seen wearing a green hoodie, ripped khaki pants and hiking boots. He was carrying a shotgun and binocular pack but no other equipment. He also may have put on a , or camouflage, suit.

The amount of money set aside each year to pay ranchers for impacts to their livestock from the controversial program isn’t keeping up with the size of damage claims.

Eight claims from 2025 already total more than $724,000 — and more claims are expected to be approved next month. With only about $400,000 remaining in the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund, Colorado Parks and Wildlife will use other funding sources to compensate ranchers.

Last year’s claims, combined with those from 2024, bring the total payments made to ranchers to more than $1.3 million — outstripping the $875,000 allocated to the program so far.

Although CPW spokesman Travis Duncan says the agency has the money to pay for future claims, the continued high cost of claims has prompted fears outside the agency about the long-term solvency of the program.

“This is a voter-mandated program and it is written in (the law) that losses must be compensated,” said Erin Karney Spaur, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. “You’re pretty much robbing Peter to pay Paul. What other programs are you robbing from to pay for the depredation program?”

At the same time, wildlife advocates have submitted a plan to to tighten the rules about who can be paid from the fund. The proposed changes would require the use of nonlethal mitigation measures and require a higher burden of proof that a wolf caused damage.

“It����ap not a slush fund,” said Ryan Sedgeley, the southern Rockies representative for the Endangered Species Coalition, one of the organizations pursuing changes to the program.

But livestock groups fear that the proposed changes, if adopted, will make it even more difficult for ranchers to be made whole from the wide range of impacts wolves can have on their operations.

“These producers are (already) not getting 100% whole or compensated for all of those losses,” Spaur said.

CPW officials dipped into other pots of money outside of the depredation fund to pay for the claims approved so far and plan to continue to do so.

“Funding for the approved, but not yet paid, claims will be determined upon payment and are currently anticipated to be split between the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund and non-license revenue in the Wildlife Cash Fund,” Duncan wrote in an email to The Denver Post.

The imbalance in the compensation program has also caught the attention of federal officials, who in recent months have questioned the state’s wolf reintroduction effort. New leadership at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Trump administration took an adversarial stance on the program and stopped the release of more wolves planned for this past winter.

The federal agency on April 6 issued a request for comments on how CPW is handling the reintroduction program. The state wildlife agency is able to manage the federally protected species through an agreement with the federal agency.

— which remains open until June 5 — federal officials asked for information about the compensation program.

“Over the past few years, many wolf-livestock depredation events have been verified in Colorado and the total number of verified depredations and associated claims has vastly exceeded the funds currently available under Colorado’s existing livestock compensation scheme,” the notice states.

State law requires ‘fair compensation’

Since CPW began the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado in 2023, the canines have killed or injured 76 head of livestock and two working dogs, .

Wildlife officials released 25 wolves in the state over two winters after voters in 2020 mandated the reintroduction of the native species. After a number of deaths, the state now has 18 collared wolves, plus others without collars and an unknown number of pups across four established packs.

requires that the wildlife agency “pay fair compensation to owners of livestock for any losses of livestock caused by gray wolves.” State lawmakers in 2023 to pay for the claims and tasked the CPW Commission with creating a claims process.

While crafting the law, lawmakers worried there would be too much money left over in the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund after all claims had been made. They created rules mandating the use of any leftover money.

But the problem has been the opposite, and CPW has instead scrounged to find other sources of money to pay the claims.

So far, CPW has paid $490,422 to producers from the compensation fund, $25,581 from the general fund, $6,315 from federal grant money, and $141,656 from wildlife cash funds not derived from hunting and fishing license sales, Duncan said.

The CPW Commission makes the final decision on all wolf depredation claims totaling more than $20,000. The volunteer commission, whose members are appointed by the governor, has drawn criticism from ranchers and wildlife advocates alike for perceived unfairness in the process.

“Part of the issue now is CPW is the judge, the jury and the executor,” said Tim Ritschard, the president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association.

Petition for change

A coalition of 19 wildlife organizations is pursuing a citizens’ petition to tighten the program’s rules.

The group — which includes the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, Roaring Fork Audubon and WildEarth Guardians — filed the petition on Feb. 6. The CPW Commission will decide whether to approve the changes, but a hearing on the petition has not yet been scheduled.

“The current wolf compensation program is so broad that it now covers claims beyond its intended purpose of reimbursing livestock owners for actual, verified wolf-caused losses,” the petition states. “This lack of clarity places stress on both ranchers and wildlife managers and could jeopardize the compensation fund’s long-term economic viability.”

The coalition is pushing for two major changes.

First, if the petition is approved, ranchers would be required to use nonlethal methods to ward off wolves from their herds after a depredation occurs. If CPW officials can prove that a rancher did not use such methods after the first depredation, his or her compensation claim should be denied, the petition states.

Under current regulations, ranchers remain eligible for compensation — though less of it — even if they do not prove they made efforts to mitigate conflict.

The second proposed change would heighten the burden of proof needed for ranchers to claim indirect losses from wolves, such as decreased calf weights and lower conception rates. The change would require ranchers to prove by a preponderance of evidence that wolves caused the negative changes and to rule out other potential causes, like weather, disease or drought.

Colorado’s wolf depredation compensation program is the broadest in the country, Sedgeley said. It is one of only four states that compensate for indirect losses.

Payments for indirect losses have made up the bulk of payments from the depredation fund. For example, one rancher’s claim paid in 2025 totaled about $387,000: $15,000 for livestock killed or injured by wolves, $178,000 for reduced calf weights, $90,000 for decreased conception rates, $100,000 for missing calves and $3,500 for missing sheep.

Those first claims set a precedent for payments that could render the program unsustainable in the long term, Sedgeley said.

“Those first claims set the standard,” he said. “And that����ap that there are no standards.”

Ranchers disagree.

Ranchers are having to hire lawyers — at their own expense — to navigate the claims process, Ritschard said.

Already, they have to compile data to show their herds change to seek indirect loss compensation, said Spaur, from the cattlemen’s association.

The claims process has become smoother as ranchers have learned how the system works and CPW has provided better guidance, she said.

“It’d be a real shame, as we’re going through this period, to raise the bar on compensation and raise it so high that it����ap almost unachievable to get compensation,” she said.

Sedgeley said the petition seeks to bring parts of the wolf compensation program in line with the , like bears, elk and mountain lions. In that process, the claimant must prove the damage was caused by the species and also has a duty to mitigate the harm experienced.

Claims approved under that program — which covers nine species — totaled $602,787 in the 2024 fiscal year, . That year, mountain lions and bears killed or injured more than 1,000 head of livestock, the report shows. Landowners are not compensated for indirect losses from those species.

“Why don’t we talk about the elk and the black bears in the same way?” Sedgeley said. “They kill so much more livestock and cause so much more damage than the wolves. It boggles my mind.”

Colorado Parks and Wildlife offers hunting licenses for 10 big game species: elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, desert bighorn sheep, mountain goats, moose, pronghorn, black bears and mountain lions.

Hunters have until 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, to apply for Parks and Wildlife’s primary draw application. Corrections to submitted applications can be made until this deadline.

Colorado’s big game draw uses a preference point system to determine who gets limited licenses for hunting. Hunters can apply for up to four hunt choices per species. If a hunter doesn’t nab a license in the primary draw, they can apply in the secondary draw, with applications open starting June 18.

Last year, the Parks and Wildlife Commission rolled out new season structures for big game hunting from 2025 to 2029 and will implement a new draw system in 2028. Additionally, there are a few new big game hunting changes for 2026.

Read the full story from our partner at .

State wildlife officials started investigating in November 2024 after a hunter reported finding a buck that appeared to be poached on the base, the agency said in a news release Tuesday.

When a CPW officer arrived in the area, they found a partially processed buck that had been abandoned with “select cuts of meat removed and the antlers cut off,” state officials said.

The officer found a doe 100 yards away that was also partially processed and abandoned, and both locations showed signs of illegal poaching, CPW leaders said in a news release.

The investigating wildlife officer found evidence to identify a vehicle connected to the case and later found related pictures on social media of Army Sgt. Jacob Curtis Keyser and Staff Sgt. Juan Salcedo.

Investigators also executed search warrants that uncovered evidence of poaching and trespassing in Keyser’s vehicle and on his phone.

A third soldier, whom state officials did not name, was fined $900 for disposing of Keyser’s poached venison right before Keyser was interviewed by a state wildlife investigator.

Keyser was charged with 30 wildlife violations and was fined $19,005 and 180 suspension points, state officials said. He must also surrender his hunting rifle, which will be destroyed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Salcedo was charged with 15 violations and was fined $8,817 and 65 suspension points.

People who are convicted of wildlife crimes and accumulate 20 or more suspension points over a five-year period are subject to , according to the agency.

State officials will hold a suspension hearing in the coming months to determine how long the soldiers will be barred from hunting and fishing, which could be up to a lifetime, nationwide ban through the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.

“Poaching is a serious, costly crime which harms legitimate sportspersons, wildlife viewers, small business owners and taxpayers,” district wildlife manager and investigating officer Demetria Wright said in a statement.

An apparent loophole in Title 33 of Colorado’s Revised Statutes makes it difficult for Colorado Parks and Wildlife to punish hunters who illegally hunt on county open spaces that are designated as “closed to hunting.”

In a recent legislative update for Pitkin County’s Board of County Commissioners, Levi Borst told commissioners that the loophole has become enough of a problem for neighboring Eagle County that they were seeking legislative changes to close the loophole.

“Apparently, they’ve got a huge problem with that, because somebody will illegally take an animal off of their open space, and they get fined by county code, and they just consider that a pay to play,” Borst told commissioners on Tuesday. “You pay the $500 fine or whatever it is, and you still keep the animal. There are no hunting license violations, and that����ap kind of the end of it.”

According to Eagle County’s Strategic Director of Communications Justin Patrick, there have been around eight instances per year of hunters hunting on county open spaces closed to hunting.

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Saturday. Winter Park Resort’s sassy side, the Mary Jane base area, is marking its 50th anniversary this season with a celebration on Saturday, Jan. 10. It includes a kickoff party with celebratory first laps, a ski-down parade and a birthday toast with cake at The Jane’s base area. Festivities in town will include fireworks and a free concert by Big Gigantic, an EDM duo from Boulder.

The concert takes place at the outdoor Rendezvous Event Center, 78821 US Highway 40, in Winter Park. Visit for resort lift tickets and more information. — John Meyer

Josiah Hesse’s “On Fire”

Tuesday. Denver journalist and author Josiah Hesse, who’s written about topics ranging from cannabis in exercise to conservative politics, has a new book called “On Fire for God” that traces his personal history with evangelical Christianity while growing up in Mason City, Iowa. “One part ‘Educated,’ one part rebuttal to ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ ‘On Fire for God’ explores the ways evangelical Christianity has preyed upon its followers while galvanizing them into the political force known today as the Christian right,” according to a statement.

Hesse will celebrate the incendiary tome’s Denver release with an all-ages event at the Tattered Cover Colfax from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 13, at 2526 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver. A $7.25 ticket is required and includes a signed hardcover copy of the book, or a $5 Tattered Cover gift certificate (in addition to event admission). Visit for tickets or for more details. — John Wenzel

A legend in the making

Friday-Saturday. Texas native Charley Crockett is a modern-day troubadour cut from the same cloth as Outlaw Country greats but also the poignant folk-rock of Bob Dylan and the raw Americana of Lucinda Williams. The tireless touring artist and songwriter finds his true calling on stage, typically performing more than 20 songs from his dozen-plus albums over the past decade, including “One Trick Pony” and “Alamosa.”

Crockett will headline RiNo’s Mission Ballroom on Friday, Jan. 9, and Saturday, Jan. 10. Tickets for the 16-and-up shows at 4242 Wynkoop St. in Denver are $78.84-$182.07 via . — John Wenzel

International Sportsmen’s Expo

Through Sunday. The massive International Sportsmen’s Expo returns to the Colorado Convention Center this weekend for all things hunting, fishing and traversing the land. New this year for the trade show: pontoon boats and an expanded RV section, along with the usual seminars and workshops features, a kid-friendly catch-and-release trout pond, live birds from the Raptor Education Foundation, and Stay the Trail’s RC off-road test track.

Tickets are $18 for ages 16 and up. Active military with ID and those 15 and under can get in for free. Noon-7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. The event takes place at 700 14th St. in downtown Denver. Visit for tickets and more information. — John Wenzel

Interested hunters can apply to be added to the list, which will only be used if management action — such as preventing property of agricultural damage — is required for wild bison that enter Colorado. The state is not creating a regular hunting season for bison.

Colorado is not home to any herds of wild bison after the species was systematically killed across the West in the 1800s.

However, a new bill signed into law in May allowed the species to be dual-classified as livestock or wildlife. The bill’s primary goal was to protect wild bison from Utah’s Book Cliffs herds that wander into Colorado near Rangely. Prior to the law being enacted, these animals lost any protections when they entered Colorado and were typically killed.

Now, free-roaming wild bison are managed by Parks and Wildlife as a big game species, meaning they cannot be killed without a proper license or permission. Privately-owned bison will continue to be managed by the Colorado Department of Agriculture as livestock.

Read the full story from our partner at .

Throughout his political career, Pearce has worked to privatize and undermine our public lands. As a New Mexico congressman, he co-sponsored several bills to dispose of national public lands. This alone ought to disqualify him from running the agency charged with stewarding 245 million acres for current and future generations.

In a , Pearce argued that the federal government owns “vast” land holdings, “most of (which) we do not even need,” and called for a massive sell-off to pay down the national debt. Pearce’s vision for our public lands is not conservation or even balanced management — it����ap liquidation.

President Trump has been down this road before: During his first term, he nominated anti-public-lands zealot William Perry Pendley to run the BLM. Pendley never even received a hearing, and the White House dropped the nomination after his record was revealed. Pendley went on to write the public lands chapter of the now-notorious Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration.

Pendley spent his career as a lawyer arguing that the federal government should not own public lands. Steve Pearce has gone even further. From inside Congress, Pearce spent 14 years undermining public lands, seeking to gut wildlife protections and sell off huge amounts of public land.

Pearce’s nomination comes as our public lands are being attacked from all sides. Over the last 10 months, President Trump has elevated officials such as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, both of whom view our public lands as nothing more than assets to monetize through drilling, mining and logging.

These officials are currently working to execute Trump’s vision of selling out public assets for private profit. Pearce would accelerate this effort, liquidating lands to the highest bidder–including corporations and luxury developers.

Even by recent standards, Pearce’s public lands record is radical. It is also unpopular. This spring, Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee tried to include a public land sale provision in the sprawling budget bill, framing it as a housing solution. The measure would have mandated the sale of 2-3 million acres of BLM and Forest Service lands.

But Lee’s amendment triggered immediate backlash from hunters, outdoor recreation groups and Western lawmakers. Within days, he abandoned the effort. If the Senate rejected Lee’s market-rate sell-off as radical, it should be easy now to reject a nominee whose goal is to get rid of even more public land.

That brings us to the Senate Stewardship Caucus, co-chaired by a Republican, Tim Sheehy of Montana, and a Democrat, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. It launched last month to “advance bipartisan efforts to conserve the nation’s lands and waters” with science-based policy. The caucus has been applauded by hunting, outdoor recreation, and conservation organizations as a promising start for defending public access and wildlife.

Pearce’s nomination is the caucus’s first real test. If its members cannot draw a bright line at a nominee who has worked tirelessly to sell off public lands and weaken laws that protect them, then its vision of “stewardship” is nothing but empty branding.

The stakes are immense. BLM’s multiple-use mandate requires balancing energy, grazing, recreation and conservation under long-term land use plans grounded in science and public input. That mission collapses if the agency’s leader believes we must “reverse this trend of public ownership” of the very lands he is charged with managing.

Westerners understand what happens when responsible stewardship is abandoned. Rural communities lose the long-term economic engine that healthy public lands provide. Hunters, anglers and campers lose access they have relied on for generations.

Steve Pearce’s nomination is a referendum on whether Congress believes our shared lands still belong to all Americans. The Stewardship Caucus and every senator who claims to care about the West����ap outdoor heritage should reject Pearce’s nomination. America’s public lands are a unique legacy we pass down to future generations, not a portfolio to liquidate.

Aaron Weiss is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities and co-host of The Landscape podcast.

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