Planned Seasonal Closure of Clear Creek Canyon (formerly "Clear Creek Bolting Ban?")
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They won't be able to park here unless it is an emergency, like a flat tire. I asked Dave Davenport of JCOS: What if someone gets out of their car, in the parking area, to take a photo? He said "I am not going to answer that". Forget fly fishing here. They were uncertain about closing the river to kayaks. I don't think JCOS or even private land owners can close a river to river travel. What JCOS will attempt to do is a different matter. Don't be surprised. |
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I sent in my comments and objections to the proposed rapture closures in CCC and the requirement for a fixed hardware review committee for all installations going forwarded. |
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Rui Ferreira wrote:JCOS simply has failed to present any credible evidence that eagles are agitated by either selecting nests in other locations outside of their habitual nests and/or that have been are abandoning nests in these past years. To me it is regulation in search of a problem, not the other way around.Golden's mate for life and typically keep several nests that they rotate year-to-year. They may simply not use a particular nest in any given year. That's where the monitoring comes in. If they end up not using it the closure should get lifted. |
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Healyje wrote: Golden's mate for life and typically keep several nests that they rotate year-to-year. They may simply not use a particular nest in any given year. That's where the monitoring comes in. If they end up not using it the closure should get lifted.And this is exactly what we have been told will happen. One thing is 5 of the active nests are all on the same cliff very close to each other, so chances are they will select one of those nests. The closures (while they don't make climbers happy) seem evidence based and reasonable to me. I can climb somewhere else during those months. It's not like we don't have a ton of other options in the Front Range... |
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Erika, people have been taking that attitude for over 21 years in Boulder. They have been saying the same thing for two decades. First it was the Flatirons north of Eldorado. Then there was closures in Eldorado. Then Mickey Maus Wall, that was state land, was purchased by Boulder Open Space & it has been seasonally closed since 1995. Then Boulder Canyon went from closing one or two cliffs to closing 8 cliffs in 2001. |
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I guess we can agree to disagree Mark. I think many facts have been presented, and it seems to me that the county is trying to balance protecting the eagles (let's not wait until they are endangered) with the needs/wants of the public. I know you see things differently. |
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There is room for public discourse and disagreement but once guidelines are implemented it is left to the enforcing agency to interpret and implement the guidelines at its own discretion. What may be perceived as a climbing tolerant agency today could revert to a complete opposite in the future with expanded closures in terms of locations and duration. |
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Rui Ferreira wrote: The mere fact that eagles nest year after year in the canyon across the road from Highlander Crag is sufficient evidence that climbing activity up until now has not "agitated" them to seek nests elsewhere or have caused them to abandon nests mid breeding season.If you have the successful fledgling counts for each year, please share it! |
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Tony, shouldn't that be the job for the county wildlife staff?! |
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Erika, I can respect your opinion. I enjoyed meeting you last Wednesday. I think you have contributed a great deal to a thoughtful discussion & raised some excellent points on this thread. It's okay that you disagree with me. |
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Mark Rolofson wrote:That said, I have seen the progression of seasonal raptor closures on the Front Range & they are increasing. Once they are in place, they rarely get scaled back.Respectfully, has anyone suggested scaling back housing developments or growth? : ) Raptor research and preservation efforts have been going for many decades now, with some very good results. In my area, climbers, the access fund, land managers, and others have worked together. Our local closures are pretty reasonable and very much supported. Research wise, the general, background information is very well established, and has been for quite some time. One of the studies here (maybe 20-25 years back?) involved wintering bald eagles and human disturbance. These weren't nesting, just fishing in our river and roosting in trees, right in the city. The study did indeed show a huge bias by the eagles against anyone stopping or going too slow. Move right along, be as loud as you want, they didn't care a bit. So yeah, the big guys are far more freaked by bird watching old ladies than a big pack of Harley hogs ripping by full throttle! Best to all of you there in CO. It sounds like you're a good group of people, and hey, at least you care enough to have opinions and get involved. |
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Rui Ferreira wrote:Tony, shouldn't that be the job for the county wildlife staff?! (Post edit) a more appropriate question is how many nests have been abandoned and how many seasons in recent years have eagles failed to nest in Clear Creek Canyon? If JeffCo were able to present such data I would be the last one to object to closures.We're asking for that, and unfortunately the staffer presently there is not the one who took the data. Different folks. New person on the job. Failed to nest and failed to fledge are different things, both can be an indication of disruption. Fledging 2 chicks per year would be an indication of really successful birds that I'd argue are having very little distress. The pair in BoCan is succeeding to that level lately. Anyway, I'm anxiously awaiting that data from the County. It doesn't come from the climbing/Rec staff though, it comes from the Natural Resources folks, we hope. |
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At the Eagle Camp at the AMC last night (which they invited those interested to attend at both earlier JCOS/Climbing meetings), they had some good news for us for raptor closures and asked for those willing to aid in the raptor monitoring. |
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Thanks for sharing the great news Leo! |
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Leo Paik wrote:On a lighter note, some well-meaning folks have mis-identified other avian species such as turkey vultures, ravens, crows, ... and even pigeons in their reports. So, if you do want to help, make sure to identify the golden eagles. Thanks!As I mentioned earlier, raptor monitoring does take a bit of time to really understand what it is you are looking at and just staring through binoculars can be more wearying than you might imagine. I'd say peregrine monitoring takes 2-3 years to really sort their silhouettes/wing/flight patterns and 3-4 years to get their local hunting and thermalling patterns down. Eagles should be much easier; like a year should do it given there's not much you can mistake for an eagle outside of vultures and the latter's wing / flight patterns are quite distinctive and very different from eagles. |
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I'm looking for a little perspective here. The Clear Creek corridor is 25 miles long. The climbing crags likely take up less than 1 mile of this, definitely far less than 2 miles. That leaves 23 - 24 miles for raptor nesting (~95% of the canyon). Add to this all of the the side canyons feeding into Clear Creek which have no climbing at all and it seems the opportunity for raptor nesting in the Clear Creek drainage far exceeds the relatively tiny amount of real estate that climbing takes up. With this fact in mind, is there any good reason to close down ANY climbing crag when there appears to be ample room for raptors to nest within the Clear Creek drainage area. Even if raptors prefer to nest on rock outcroppings there are far more outcroppings that are not climbed than those which are being climbed. |
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William, the challenge is that the birds don't nest as we like. They choose nest sites. Interestingly, they seem to like some of the same terrain that we climbers like. So, on paper, your math might seem plausible; however, in practice they have nested in places close to active climbing crags. Much of the terrain climbers might find less appealing is the terrain these magnificent birds seem to disdain. |
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William Thiry wrote:I'm looking for a little perspective here. The Clear Creek corridor is 25 miles long. The climbing crags likely take up less than 1 mile of this, definitely far less than 2 miles. That leaves 23 - 24 miles for raptor nesting (~95% of the canyon). Add to this all of the the side canyons feeding into Clear Creek which have no climbing at all and it seems the opportunity for raptor nesting in the Clear Creek drainage far exceeds the relatively tiny amount of real estate that climbing takes up. With this fact in mind, is there any good reason to close down ANY climbing crag when there appears to be ample room for raptors to nest within the Clear Creek drainage area. Even if raptors prefer to nest on rock outcroppings there are far more outcroppings that are not climbed than those which are being climbed.Yes, but Eagles only nest on certain, and very particular aspects of cliffs. They don't just "pick one." Also- there are other pairs around, probably in some of those side canyons you mention, but there's no sense in closing unused areas. Eagles pick sites that are very, very non-random. Things like independent (non-occupied) territory, near their hunting, get hot weather shade, cold weather sun, have a stable ledge of sufficient size and grade, be below significant overhangs or roofs, or at least not in an area that might collect water or be in it's course. Etc. They want a particular area of viewshed, etc. They are actually very picky. There are sites that have been continuously occupied for hundreds of years and that's obviously not by the same birds. They just happen to like very specific qualities in their sites. When a pair does not return, a new pair may pick their old site. More dangerous to them, perhaps, is that they might pick their nest site when activity is minimal (it can be that way in February) and then have the activity pick up after selecting a nest, and then get overly disturbed and either spend all their time watching people and not hunting, or refuse to leave the nest to hunt when they need to. I mention that because I hear the uninformed argument "but they chose that nest near climbers" with some frequency, and it's not a very sound argument. We don't know where the climbers were when they started the courtship ritual of carrying sticks to a nest site. Anyway, one more important fact: If one chick is stressed for food, it will most certainly kill the other chick. Peck it to death or shove it out of the nest. Again, this is just their biology. One well-fed chick might survive, but 2 malnourished chicks will not. Hope this helps address your questions. |
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Thanks Tony, |
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Thanks for the replies. I'd like to learn more. Does anyone know if and where any permanent or semi-permanent nesting sites are in the Clear Creek drainage? Have we studied the area enough to know this yet? Having a map of where the raptor families actually nest would be pretty darn cool. |