Colorado Outdoors - the Podcast for Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Colorado Parks and Wildlife owns and operates the largest inventory of dams in the state of Colorado. The water impounded is used for purposes such as downstream irrigation, fisheries management and aquatic operations, and a multitude of recreational activities including fishing, boating and swimming.

CPW manages more than 120 dams across the state and has spent more than $126 million in the last decade for dam safety related work. All of this work helps keep downstream communities safe while providing recreational opportunities in Colorado’s reservoirs and on tailwater fisheries. Without these dams creating reservoirs, the state would have significantly less water-based recreation opportunities, as there are only 11 natural lakes in Colorado greater than 50 surface acres.

In this episode of the Colorado Outdoors Podcast, we chat with Dam Safety Program Manager and Chief Dam Safety Engineer Eric Eisinger as well as Capital Program Manager Margaret Taylor about what it takes to monitor and manage Colorado’s inventory of dams.

Come for the great information, stay for the beaver jokes.

In April 2024, Colorado’s 2024-25 Long Appropriations Bill opened the door for a new Colorado Parks and Wildlife statewide K-9 program. The new statewide K-9 program will have a lead K-9 Supervisor and five K-9 handlers assigned to the new statewide unit. This comes on the heels of the success of CPW's previous pilot program in which CPW utilized three dogs.

K-9 officers aid CPW wildlife managers in detecting the presence of wildlife, whether that’s checking hunters or even identifying endangered species in the field. Along with assisting in wildlife law enforcement cases, dogs can also be used in black bear management.

CPW recently promoted former District Wildlife Manager Ian Petkash, who handles K-9 Samson, to the K-9 Unit Supervisor position. Petkash joins the podcast to let us know plans for expanding the K-9 program and provide a better understanding of how CPW’s wildlife officers utilize dogs in the field and what it takes to build the program.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife recently concluded a 10-year monitoring of lynx in the Southwest Region of CPW. In this episode, learn more about how CPW monitors the elusive population of wildcats.

Wildlife Research Scientist Jake Ivan joins the show to talk about key findings from the 10 years of monitoring including issues related to habitat and coexistence with other wildlife species. Jake also dives into the origins of the lynx reintroduction in Colorado and what future monitoring of the species will look like.

Earlier this year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released a new coffee table book titled “At Home in Nature: A History of Colorado’s State Parks.” It’s truly a must-have for those interested in our state’s natural and cultural heritage.

Learn how this book went from a pre-COVID idea to a finished product in 2024 that is now available for sale at state park visitor centers and on cpwshop.com. Priced at $34.95, the book has been so popular in its first few months that it is already heading for a second printing.

In this episode, hear from two women key in the formation of this book. Mary Taylor Young, a famed Colorado nature writer, was the primary editor and organizer of the book while contributing her own writing. The show is also joined by Margaret Taylor, CPW’s Capital Development Manager, who also contributed writing and tons of work to get the book from concept to finished product.

Show host John Livingston is also joined on this episode by co-host Kara Van Hoose. Give this episode a listen to get all the behind the scenes stories and discover a few of the hidden gems you won’t find in the book’s index.

Colorado’s first rifle season will open Oct. 12 this year, and hunters across the state are getting prepared and sighting in at local ranges to get perfectly in tune to take their shot this fall. With that in mind, it’s an excellent time to learn more about Colorado’s Nontoxic Bullet Replacement Hunting Program.

Following the 2023 passing of HB 23-1036, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has worked with several partners to demonstrate the effectiveness of non-lead ammunition for hunters in an effort to reduce toxic ammunition on the landscape for the benefit of people and wildlife.

In this episode of the Colorado Outdoors Podcast, learn all about this program from the people key in its creation and implementation.

Colorado State Representative Barbara McLachlan, who authored the bill in the state assembly, joins the show to discuss what prompted her to introduce the legislation. 

Show host John Livingston is also joined by co-host Kristin Cannon, a Deputy Regional Manager for CPW who is overseeing the implementation of the program, and the two interview an incredible panel of guests that detail the impacts of lead ammunition to wild animals and the effectiveness and benefits of copper alternatives.

Included on the panel are Bryan Bedrosian of Sporting Lead-Free, Leland Brown from the Non-Lead Partnership and Aaron Kindle of the National Wildlife Federation.

Give this episode a listen and hear for yourself why making the switch from lead to copper might be part of your hunt plan this year.

COTREX puts information about all of Colorado’s trails in your hands, thanks to a collaborative effort by land managers at every level.

More than 230 land managers have contributed to COTREX data to detail 45,076 miles of trail across Colorado. And because the information is all sourced directly from land managers, you can trust you are recreating responsibly whenever you start your journey using COTREX.

Best of all, COTREX is completely free and you’ll never have to make in-app purchases to download maps or receive important alerts and safety information.

Join us as we chat with CPW State Trails Program Coordinator Joe O’Brien about his love for trails and tech, what features in the app you should be putting to use and a hint at the possibilities for the future of the constantly expanding app.

Summer is here, and the high-water season for recreational paddlers has reached Colorado’s iconic rivers. While Colorado manages 43 state parks, the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area is among the most unique in that it spans across a 152-mile corridor that follows the Arkansas River from the high mountains near Leadville to Lake Pueblo.

AHRA isn’t only a whitewater destination, though. It also boasts eight developed campgrounds and 19 dispersed camping areas while also offering gold-medal fishing, incredible wildlife viewing and hiking and climbing opportunities.

Still, it’s the whitewater that many think of first when it comes to AHRA. It’s one of the nation’s most popular rafting and kayaking destinations and is the most commercially rafted river in the United States.

Along with that many boaters and stretches of Class III to Class V rapids comes challenges for CPW staff. AHRA rangers have already responded to multiple rescue calls this year, and there has already been one kayaking fatality in early June.

In this episode, hear from AHRA Manager Tom Waters and River Ranger Supervisor Jeffrey Hammond on what it takes to manage AHRA, the diversity of the rescue and recovery situations they find themselves in and the ever-present danger that comes with whitewater recreation

In this episode, recorded from the Partners in the Outdoors Conference at Beaver Run Resort in Breckenridge, we hear from a few partner organizations in attendance and what the theme “We are Better Together,” means to them.

First, we talked with Partners Conference organizer Shalana Gray about the two-year effort to reimagine and rebuild the Partners Conference. We learned how sessions were developed and looked ahead to continued growth of the event moving forward.

Then, we chat with Topher Downham from the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks about his collaborative work in increasing opportunities for the disabled community to engage in the outdoors through various adaptive programs, including at Colorado State Parks.

We also sat down with Bianka Martinez, an ambassador with Hunters of Color, and learned how her attendance at the 2021 Partners Conference led to new opportunities to engage in the hunting community and what she is doing now to connect others with the outdoors in multiple ways.

We wrap up the show with a powerful spoken word poetry segment from Franklin Cruz, who closed the conference Wednesday afternoon by delivering the poem.

In this episode, go behind the scenes with CPW staff from the capture team in Oregon and the release team back in Colorado as 10 gray wolves were translocated to the state in December 2023.

While the Colorado gray wolf reintroduction story could take up multiple podcasts, we narrowed our focus in this episode to take listeners behind the scenes and into the minds of our staff and give you their perspective on the capture process in Oregon and from the release sites in Colorado.

The episode starts with audio from Oregon of one of Colorado’s new gray wolves howling in her crate the night before being translocated to Colorado. Then, listen as we are joined by Wildlife Research Scientist Ellen Brandell, Wolf Monitoring and Data Coordinator Brenna Cassidy, Wildlife Veterinarian Pauline Nol and Public Information Officer Rachael Gonzales about their experience on the capture team in Oregon.

Then, we pivot to Eric Odell, the Wolf Conservation Program Manager, and Reid DeWalt, the Assistant Director for Aquatic, Terrestrial and Natural Resources branch of CPW, as they take us through the releases in Colorado.