DENTRY: Big snow good news for wildlife

By Ed Dentry, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 12, 2007 at 12:45 a.m.

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Snow that has spread far and wide since late last week has jacked up hopes that a happy 2008 might be in the offing for Colorado's fish and wildlife, after all.

The good times could come sooner for Front Range waterfowlers, who, after stretches of boredom, now have slightly better odds of seeing an actual migration of ducks and geese.

There for a while, the climatological outlook for Colorado's high country was getting dicey. Hefty snows that fell in early October melted and turned to dust during the big-game rifle seasons.

Now there is hope that reservoirs will fill, rivers will swell and mountain feed will be lush next summer.

"It's been a remarkable turnaround from two weeks ago when we were at near-record minimums," said Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the National Resources Conservation Service in Colorado. "Now we're well above average for the state."

Early this month, the NRCS recorded snowpacks from 92 percent of average in the San Miguel/Dolores/Animas/San Juan Basin to 59 percent in the Yampa/White Basin. The South Platte Basin stood at 68 percent.

By Tuesday morning, with snow still falling, the statewide snowpack had grown to 116 percent of average. The major beneficiaries were river systems in southern and southwestern Colorado.

The upper Rio Grande swelled to 156 percent, the San Miguel group to 153 percent, Gunnison to 130 percent, Arkansas to 128 percent and Upper Colorado River to 108 percent. The South Platte registered 94 percent.

So much snow fell last week that some residents in southwestern Colorado expressed concern for elk and deer. The snow was dense, wet and more than 3 feet deep in the upper Gunnison River Valley.

Brandon Diamond, Gunnison- area biologist for the Division of Wildlife, said it's too early to worry about stress leading to winterkill.

"This was one of the better storms I've seen in a while," Diamond said Monday. "But up to this point, we haven't had any snow at all, to speak of.

"The critters are in good body condition, and it seems like they are still moving around OK and coming down (out of the high country). Of course, I'll be monitoring the animals' conditions."

Coloradans have learned to look upon current weather conditions with a skeptic's eye, understanding that what you see now could be gone in five minutes. But for the time being, drought threats seem far away.

SKY WATCH: Batches of migrating waterfowl are closer. But whether the weather has the fortitude to nudge them across Colorado's state line is a question for another day - maybe the weekend.

Certainly, more seasonal weather has aligned the stars for a real migration of ducks and geese to pass along the South Platte River. But eastern Colorado remains more wintry than the location of the nearest fowl assemblage to the north.

That would be Scottsbluff, Neb. The panhandle town on the North Platte River, a bit more than 60 miles north of Colorado, has been reveling in ducks and geese.

Last week, reader Ken Kranik, an engineer for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, reported seeing "thousands of mallards, along with Canada geese" on his 35-mile route from Bridgeport to Scottsbluff.

This week, Scottsbluff waterfowlers have been raving on Ducks Unlimited's Web site about even more mallards and large Canada geese piling into the area.

A nudge is all it would take.

dentrye@RockyMountainNews.com

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