Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) has announced plans to conduct low-altitude helicopter flights to assess big game herds across the Southeast Region from Leadville to Trinidad and east of Interstate 25, beginning Dec. 2.

“Each year, CPW biologists inventory tens of thousands of animals statewide to develop a picture of the productivity and composition of big game in Colorado,” CPW wrote in a press release. “The data is critical to our work of forming population models, management strategies and to set future hunting license numbers.”

Flights west of I-25 (in South Park, the Upper Arkansas River Valley, the Pikes Peak Region, the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the Wet Mountain Valley, and Fishers Peak State Park in Trinidad) will involve herd surveys and some capture work.

Biologists will capture mule deer does and fawns to place radio-transmitting collars on them on flights from Leadville to Canon City, and flights in the South Park area will include capturing elk.

For herd survey work, CPW says that Southeast Region residents can expect to see helicopters spend a short amount of time in a specific area and move on as they search for herds, hovering for biologists to count, determine the sex of the animals, and assess overall health.

On the Southeastern plains, CPW biologists will survey Kit Carson, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Prowers, and Baca counties. They will also survey along the Arkansas River and associated drainages from Pueblo to the Kansas state line and along the South Republican River drainage from Flagler to the Kansas state line.

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