The MeatEater

Earlier this week, Denver Water announced that it will soon drain water from one of Colorado’s most popular recreational fisheries: Antero Reservoir. The decision will shutter recreational opportunities at the premier trophy trout fishery, likely impacting it for years to come.

Denver Water, a public utility that serves 1.5 million people in the city of Denver, says it made the difficult decision to increase efficiency as the state is experiencing historically low snowpack conditions. Antero, a 2,300-acre reservoir on the South Platte River, has a high water evaporation rate. Because of this, Denver Water will drain the waterbody’s water and transfer it to Cheeseman Reservoir, another waterbody managed by the utility.

“A lot of forethought and planning went into our collection system and reservoirs,” said Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver Water. “Antero is a drought reservoir, designed to provide water to our customers during a severe drought. Consolidating this water into Cheesman will help us make the most of the water we have.”

Draining Antero will soon close it to recreation of any kind. Denver Water initially said that fish from the reservoir will be captured and relocated by Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW), but it’s not clear if that will actually be the case. This week, CPW contradicted Denver Water when it announced that it is opening Antero to an emergency “fish salvage” by eliminating all possession and bag limits through May 13, after which it will be indefinitely shuttered.

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife appreciates the public’s help in harvesting fish from Antero and utilizing those resources as much as possible,” said CPW Senior Aquatic Biologist Kyle Battige. “We are currently evaluating the feasibility of CPW-led salvage efforts and hope to rebuild into a high quality fishery once the reservoir is filled in the future.”

Antero is far from the only reservoir likely to be impacted by widespread drought conditions across the Western U.S. In fact, federal officials recently announced a significant drawdown on another famed fishery: Flaming Gorge Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah border. That reservoir will see 660,000 to 1 million acre-feet drawn to keep downstream Lake Powell from failing this summer. The action will likely cause the water level at Flaming Gorge to drop by around 35 feet.

Feature image of Antero Reservoir via CPW.

A 27-year-old turkey hunter remains missing after a solo hunt on Mount Shavano in southern Colorado last week, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office.

Kaden Sites was reported missing around 7 p.m. on April 15. He left for a short hunt around 1:30 that afternoon and planned to be back for a doctor’s appointment at 3:45 but never showed.

Family members found Sites’ truck parked near Blank’s Cabin Trailhead on Mount Shavano. His cellphone was still inside with a dead battery.

Search and rescue efforts ramped up that evening, with approximately 80 people involved in a multi-agency effort, which included ground crews, K9 teams, drones, helicopters, and a fixed-wing aircraft to cover the area’s rugged terrain.

“He’s never ever been gone, even after dark,” Sites’s sister Hannah told KKTV. “He will always come back before that. So it was definitely shocking when he didn’t.”

Agencies assisting in the ongoing search effort include Chaffee County Search and Rescue, Colorado Search and Rescue Association, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Salida Police Department, Arapahoe Rescue Patrol, Western Mountain Rescue, Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado, among others.

Sites is described as a 6-foot, 2-inch white male weighing 160 pounds with light brown hair, a goatee, and a mustache. The sheriff’s office released an AI-generated image on Monday depicting what Sites was believed to be wearing when he went missing, including a gray or black hoodie, ripped khaki pants, hiking boots, and a ball cap. Authorities say he was carrying a shotgun and a small binocular pack, but no other gear.

Sites appears to have planned a quick afternoon hunt, not an overnight trip. He didn’t pack for a backcountry expedition, carrying only a shotgun, bino harness, and probably a few calls.

But on a mountain like Shavano, even a routine hunt can go sideways in a hurry. Located in the San Isabel National Forest and rising to more than 14,000 feet above sea level, the mountain is part of the southern Sawatch Range and known for steep terrain and heavy timber. In April, weather conditions can swing on a dime. Warm afternoon sun can turn into a cold evening. What starts as a short hunt in pleasant weather can morph into something miserable if you end up injured, turned around, or caught out after dark. Temperatures in the area dropped below 20 degrees over the weekend.

The search for Sites entered a new phase Tuesday morning. Officials say efforts will continue for what could be weeks, but the large initial response will be tapering so volunteers can recover from physical strain. Searchers have already covered more than 3,000 miles of ground.

Authorities have reversed the request for the public to stay out of the area. However, they are urging anyone in the community who wants to join the search to use extreme caution, travel in pairs, wear high-visibility clothing, carry food and water, and prepare for fast-changing weather conditions. They also urge searchers to carry tracking equipment and a cellphone. Private drone use in the area is currently prohibited.

Search and rescue coordinators believe Sites may have traveled downhill and are asking those in the area to focus their search east and southeast of the Colorado Trail near Blank’s Cabin Trailhead. Anyone who finds Sites or his shotgun should leave them undisturbed and contact the non-emergency dispatch at (719) 539-2596.

Authorities also point out that searchers should be looking for an “immobile subject” at this time.

Photos courtesy of the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

In the summer of 2019 a small group of us does a 12-day river descent from Alaska’s Brooks Range through the heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, experiencing a preserved slice of primeval western America that seems in perpetual danger of being destroyed by humanity’s relentless addiction to oil.

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Tony explains how a recent turkey bow hunt in Nebraska reminded him of how we as hunters should always be thinking about scouting when we are in the woods, regardless of whether we have deer on our minds or not.

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In mid-May of 2025, my son Bear Newcomb and I headed to southeast Alaska to hunt with my friend and outfitter David Benitz. I’ve previously hunted for mountain goats and also went wolf trapping with David. He’s an incredible Alaskan bowhunter, trapper, commercial fisherman, and he’s been an outfitter for most of his life. Not to mention, he’s just a great guy.

Southeast Alaska is home to some of the best black bear hunting in the world because the region boasts some of the highest densities of black bears in the US. The way I like to hunt them in the spring is boat-based. Southeast Alaska experiences massive tide swings. So when the tides are low, the bears come onto the shore to eat grasses, blue mussels, crabs, carrion, basically whatever they can scavenge.

David has a 48-foot fishing boat called the Sandpiper, which has living quarters and a kitchen. We set out on the Sandpiper on this trip, and it served as our bear camp for eight days. The big boat also carried a skiff with a 60-horse motor. We’d anchor in a secluded cove protected from the weather and take the skiff out every day to hunt from.

Targeting black bears on the shore makes for a glassing-heavy hunt. About midday, we’d leave on the skiff and glass for eight to ten hours, nonstop. The image-stabilizing tech in Sig Saur’s ZULU6 binos made long glassing sessions tolerable for this trip. The boat is always moving, and those optics are game-changers when you’re glued to the glass for hours on end, swaying on the sea.

The original idea of this hunt was for Bear and me to both hunt with primitive bows that he made with Osage orange. But while we were en route to Alaska, I remembered that you have to complete a bowhunter education course to bowhunt in The Last Frontier. I’d taken the course years ago, but Bear didn’t. Not being able to legally bowhunt was pretty devastating for him—he really wanted to test out his bows in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Luckily, Janis Putelis sent him a Sig Cross rifle in time for the hunt.

While I was able to hunt with one of Bear’s primitive bows, he had to hunt with a firearm, which ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise. The stalks for getting close to bears were really difficult on this trip—at least for me.

I knew that I didn’t want to shoot a bear beyond 10 yards. One reason being that my personal accuracy with the bow I was shooting was limited, and I didn't feel comfortable shooting beyond that. Also, the energy of a primitive bow is significantly less than a compound.

Since he was hunting with a rifle, Bear decided to hold out for a big one. Meanwhile, I planned to take the first bear that presented the best opportunity.

On day two, after one of the wettest springs in southeast Alaska history (it rained for about 18 days straight), we finally got a few good days of weather. Later that day, Bear shot a big boar that was cementum annuli aged (tooth-aged) at 15 years old. He shot this incredible animal at about 50-60 yards on the beach in perfect conditions.

After taking his bear back to the Sandpiper and putting it in the freezer, I was left with six days to punch my tag with the stick bow. That proved to be incredibly difficult.

I went on a total of 21 stalks. Many of those were within 40 yards, and a few occurred inside 30 yards. On one particular hunt, I even stalked as close as six or seven yards from a pretty big bear. At one point he turned broadside at 12 yards, but I was adamant about not shooting past 10, so I stuck to my guns on that. I didn’t want to wound a bear, but ironically, that’s what I ended up doing.

I wounded a bear at 10 yards. It was heartbreaking. I hit its shoulder, and the broadhead barely penetrated to the shaft of the arrow. The arrow broke off, but we looked and looked for the bear. We even came back the next day to continue our search, but we couldn’t find it.

Two weeks later, at the Alaska Game and Fish check station (where we checked Bear’s bear), a guy from Texas brought in the bear with my broadhead in the shoulder, which they shot with a rifle. Luckily, they said the bear appeared totally fine at the time.

Southeast Alaska is an incredible place—it’s exotic, dangerous, beautiful, rainy, and harsh. There’s no place like it on earth, especially for black bear hunting. My son and I had a spectacular experience; it was his first time in Alaska, and I think it really broadened his horizons.

To watch this hunt of MeatEater’s 12 in ‘26 film series, click here.

A 27-year-old turkey hunter remains missing after a solo hunt on Mount Shavano in southern Colorado last week, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office.

Kaden Sites was reported missing around 7 p.m. on April 15. He left for a short hunt around 1:30 that afternoon and planned to be back for a doctor’s appointment at 3:45 but never showed.

Family members found Sites’ truck parked near Blank’s Cabin Trailhead on Mount Shavano. His cellphone was still inside with a dead battery.

Search and rescue efforts ramped up that evening, with approximately 80 people involved in a multi-agency effort, which included ground crews, K9 teams, drones, helicopters, and a fixed-wing aircraft to cover the area’s rugged terrain.

“He’s never ever been gone, even after dark,” Sites’s sister Hannah told KKTV. “He will always come back before that. So it was definitely shocking when he didn’t.”

Agencies assisting in the ongoing search effort include Chaffee County Search and Rescue, Colorado Search and Rescue Association, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Salida Police Department, Arapahoe Rescue Patrol, Western Mountain Rescue, Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado, among others.

Sites is described as a 6-foot, 2-inch white male weighing 160 pounds with light brown hair, a goatee, and a mustache. The sheriff’s office released an AI-generated image on Monday depicting what Sites was believed to be wearing when he went missing, including a gray or black hoodie, ripped khaki pants, hiking boots, and a ball cap. Authorities say he was carrying a shotgun and a small binocular pack, but no other gear.

Sites appears to have planned a quick afternoon hunt, not an overnight trip. He didn’t pack for a backcountry expedition, carrying only a shotgun, bino harness, and probably a few calls.

But on a mountain like Shavano, even a routine hunt can go sideways in a hurry. Located in the San Isabel National Forest and rising to more than 14,000 feet above sea level, the mountain is part of the southern Sawatch Range and known for steep terrain and heavy timber. In April, weather conditions can swing on a dime. Warm afternoon sun can turn into a cold evening. What starts as a short hunt in pleasant weather can morph into something miserable if you end up injured, turned around, or caught out after dark. Temperatures in the area dropped below 20 degrees over the weekend.

The search for Sites entered a new phase Tuesday morning. Officials say efforts will continue for what could be weeks, but the large initial response will be tapering so volunteers can recover from physical strain. Searchers have already covered more than 3,000 miles of ground.

Authorities have reversed the request for the public to stay out of the area. However, they are urging anyone in the community who wants to join the search to use extreme caution, travel in pairs, wear high-visibility clothing, carry food and water, and prepare for fast-changing weather conditions. They also urge searchers to carry tracking equipment and a cellphone. Private drone use in the area is currently prohibited.

Search and rescue coordinators believe Sites may have traveled downhill and are asking those in the area to focus their search east and southeast of the Colorado Trail near Blank’s Cabin Trailhead. Anyone who finds Sites or his shotgun should leave them undisturbed and contact the non-emergency dispatch at (719) 539-2596.

Authorities also point out that searchers should be looking for an “immobile subject” at this time.

Photos courtesy of the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

This week, Cal tells you about a woman who didn't cry wolf, a program to release pen-raised deer into the wild, and a crane hunt in Wisconsin than never was.

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Steven Rinella talks with David Bayes. 

Topics discussed: The Stop Alaska Trawler Bycatch group; the incomprehensible size of trawling nets; pulling up a quarter of a million pounds of fish with one trawl net sweep; a floating factory; the impact of bottom trawling and how many countries have banned it; what you're really not supposed to be catching; as good as dead if caught in a trawl net; different regs between the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska; population impacts on pollock, salmon, and many other species; the huge concern of the seafloor being destroyed and lost; and more. 

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In 1957, Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) released 31 aoudad, or barbary sheep, a species native to North Africa, in the Texas panhandle to increase hunting opportunities. The species took well to the arid Texas land, and another 40 animals were released by the following year. Today, those few dozen animals have grown to an estimated population of more than 20,000 according to TPWD.

From those initial releases in the Panhandle, aoudad have since expanded across a large portion of the state, pushing west into the rugged mountains and deserts of the Trans-Pecos region—prime habitat for native desert bighorn sheep. That overlap has raised growing concern among wildlife professionals and hunters.

In 2025, TPWD surveys observed just 730 desert bighorns statewide, a fraction of the aoudad population. Unlike bighorn, aoudad reproduce quickly, often having two sets of twins annually, compared to a bighorn ewe's singular baby a year. Aoudad also compete with native sheep for limited forage and, perhaps most concerning, can carry and spread diseases that pose a serious threat to native sheep.

Those concerns aren’t theoretical. In 2019, desert bighorn sheep in West Texas were hit by an outbreak of pneumonia linked to Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (M. ovi), a pathogen known to cause devastating die-offs in wild sheep across North America. Prior to that, Texas’ desert bighorn populations had largely avoided exposure, but as aoudad populations expanded across the Trans-Pecos, researchers began to link the invasive sheep as reservoirs for the disease.

The impact was severe. In 2019, Texas’ desert bighorn population was estimated at around 1,500 animals, near a historic high. By 2024, that number had dropped to fewer than 500. Aoudad, by contrast, often carry the disease with few or no symptoms, allowing it to spread quickly through overlapping habitat and making the spread almost impossible to manage.

Just as desert bighorn sheep begin to recover from recent pneumonia outbreaks, another potential threat is emerging on the landscape. An outbreak of infectious keratoconjunctivitis (IKC), commonly known as pinkeye, is now spreading through aoudad populations in West Texas, causing severe eye infections and blindness, which can ultimately lead to death.

In a recent update, Texas Parks and Wildlife officials reported that “Since December [2025], approximately 25 Aoudad showing severe clinical characteristics (e.g., blindness) in one or both eyes have been documented across 30 miles.”

They described pink eye as “a highly contagious eye infection that can be a common disease in livestock. IKC has also been described in many wildlife species. It rarely affects just one animal, but spreads throughout a herd.” Stating it “can be spread by flies, dust, and other exposed environmental vectors. In wildlife populations there is no available treatment and the disease naturally runs its course through the herd.”

TPWD has not yet documented any cases of IKC in Texas bighorn sheep but is closely and actively monitoring, as an outbreak could be detrimental.

So how are the aoudad being managed? One way is through Texas Senate Bill 1245, which went into effect September 1, 2025, and legalized aerial harvest of aoudad.

Through this bill, landowners and private land hunters will be able to hunt aoudad from a helicopter, a great advantage in the rough and vast West Texas terrain. It is important to note that over 93% of the land in Texas is privately owned. Therefore, wildlife management often depends on what happens beyond public ground. Additionally, as an exotic species in Texas, there is no closed season or bag limit for these animals on private land.

TPWD is doing their part as well, offering drawn hunt opportunities for trophy aoudad, controlling populations on public lands, and working with partners such as Texas A&M University and the Borderlands Research Institute to better understand disease transmission.

Feature images via TPWD.