A tenacious bald eagle in Frederick illustrates wildlife’s fight to survive along Colorado’s increasingly developed Front Range
FREDERICK — Development along Colorado’s Front Range is destroying wildlife habitat, but one large bald eagle — recently seen copulating with her mate atop a gnarled old cottonwood tree — has proved tenacious in the face of bulldozers, traffic and fracking.
The eagle lost a previous mate to power-line electrocution three years ago. Nests in two cottonwoods were ruined after homebuilders pulled down one tree, and the other collapsed, killing two eaglets that fell within weeks of learning to fly.
Above this latest nest on a recent morning, the eagle looped across a heavy blue-gray sky, then hunkered back down — head snapping right and left, eyes scanning in every direction — as it was buffeted by blowing snow and a 17-degree temperature that threatened to freeze two new eggs.
“Most nesting female eagles are pretty tenacious, but this one is as committed, determined and undeterred as they come,” said Dana Bove, a retired federal geologist who was watching the eagle through a scope as part of his Front Range Nesting Bald Eagle Studies. “If you are in-filling wildlife habitat as we are in this area with 2,000 homes over there, the Wyndham subdivision there, oil and gas over here, two mom-and-pop projects to build houses here — all of a sudden there’s no space left for these birds to sustain a nest.
“That’s what is happening throughout Colorado’s Front Range, not just for eagles, but all kinds of wildlife.”
Even for species that receive special protection under federal and state laws, survival is increasingly precarious as subdivisions and fossil-fuel production transform once-teeming wildlife habitat in Colorado to meet human needs. Only species able to habituate stand a chance.
Two federal laws protect bald eagles: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Endangered Species Act protects other species along Colorado’s Front Range, such as the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has designated the northern leopard frog and burrowing owl and others as “species of special concern,” declaring conservation of their habitat along Front Range rivers a priority. And state and federal wildlife laws also protect Colorado’s whooping cranes.
But U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife officials interviewed by The Denver Post said that, far more than enforcement of laws, local land use decision-making will determine whether wildlife and habitat survive Colorado’s current growth and development boom.
The cottonwood where this eagle warmed her eggs sits on land owned by Anadarko Petroleum near South Boulder Creek in Weld County, where oil and gas companies are expanding their drilling and fracking, adding to more than 22,000 active wells. Anadarko officials said they don’t have plans to develop the land yet, but that, when they do, they will work with Colorado Parks and Widlife officials to minimize disturbances.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a regulatory agency simultaneously charged by state lawmakers with promoting fossil-fuel development, recently issued Crestone Peak Resources a permit to drill 22 wells at another site nearby — within half a mile of an established migratory eagle roosting area — without considering the impact on wildlife.
COGCC officials told The Denver Post their wildlife habitat maps were out of date and that, under agency procedures, maps won’t be updated until the commission embarks on a formal rulemaking process involving public “stakeholder” hearings.
“Don’t ask me why it has to be a ‘rulemaking’ to update the maps,” the agency’s community relations manager Mike Leonard said, adding that, while COGCC will not reconsider the permit, Crestone has agreed to adjust the timing of well-pad construction.
Extraction Oil and Gas recently installed a pipeline beneath eagle perches a few miles to the north of this nest. And Frederick town trustees on Feb. 12 signed off on a “re-plat” here for the expansion of Wyndham Hill subdivision housing on farmland within one-third of a mile from this eagle’s nest. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials had warned that eagles need a half-mile buffer during the birds’ nesting period, from Oct. 15 to July 31.
But the state officials lament they lack the power to prevent harm.
State guidelines for helping wildlife survive “are just recommendations… on how any developer, a municipality putting in a trail, or an oil and gas company can avoid violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which is federal law,” CPW area wildlife manager Kristin Cannon said, verifying the electrocution of the eagle’s prior mate and other events in her life.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post Escedro Ayala, a hand at a ranch near Stearns Lake, takes a break to look at a pair of nesting bald eagles in open space that abuts the ranch on Feb. 26, 2019, in Broomfield. The issues facing the eagles are indicative of broader wildlife challenges along Colorado's Front Range as more land is developed, causing large swaths of habitat loss.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post A pair of bald eagles are nesting in a large cottonwood tree on Boulder County open space on Feb. 26, 2019, in Broomfield.
Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post High powered tension lines have roosting sites for birds, like bald eagles and hawks, along Colorado Road 5 on Feb. 18, 2019, near Frederick. These man-made roost were put up after an eagle was electrocuted when it landed on a high wire.
Show Caption Helen H. Richardson, The Denver PostEscedro Ayala, a hand at a ranch near Stearns Lake, takes a break to look at a pair of nesting bald eagles in open space that abuts the ranch on Feb. 26, 2019, in Broomfield. The issues facing the eagles are indicative of broader wildlife challenges along Colorado's Front Range as more land is developed, causing large swaths of habitat loss.
“If you have development too close during an eagle nesting period, the eagles’ nest will fail. They will not be able to reproduce. But we don’t have any state laws that speak to these disturbances that can cause a nest to fail,” Cannon said.
This so-called Erie eagle that is monitored by Front Range Nesting Bald Eagle Studies — names aren’t given as a matter of principle — “certainly has been an eagle who chose to nest in an area that has some human development and, in the course of her trying to make a living, development has increased and encroached on her foraging space and nesting,” Cannon said. “She’s certainly representative of the change eagles face, and also their adaptability — always trying to find a better place to be as development increases around her.”
Federal Fish and Wildlife Service officials sometimes grant developers permits that shield them from prosecution if construction leads to the accidental killing, or “take,” of bald eagles and other protected species. A 2017 Trump administration memo directs Fish and Wildlife not to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act except in cases where the killing of protected species is intentional, such as shooting or poisoning.
Federal officials did not provide information requested by The Post detailing recent enforcement along Colorado’s high-growth northern Front Range.
Some wildlife species are proving more able than others to habituate: crows, raccoons, coyotes and perhaps lynx in national forests where federal land managers protect habitat. There’s evidence bald eagles, too, may be able to endure development — a lone male appears sporadically in central Denver’s City Park — depending on the intensity of disturbances and whether nesting and foraging habitat is destroyed.
Other species teeter on the brink of extinction, such as the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse.
That mouse lives near creeks and wooded slopes between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs. State and federal authorities, with support from city officials, have approved a widening of Interstate 25 through this prime habitat in an effort to alleviate worsening vehicle traffic jams.
Along I-25 near Larkspur, local decision-makers also are approving additional development including a 24-hour truck stop and commercial construction that began with razing of the forest near creeks. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials reviewed project plans and issued “take” permits, one of which allows the incidental killing of up to 35 of the endangered mice.
Preble’s jumping mice “are still around. We do consider those areas along I-25 to be occupied,” federal biologist Alison Michael said.
The Denver Post File In this July 18, 2017, file photo, Scott Quigley, left, David Lucas, center, and Alison Michael head out to look at traps as they study the rare jumping mouse at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Broomfield. The group was trying to find out whether the mouse had survived and how much protection it needs up and down Colorado's booming Front Range. They found two meadow vole mice and 11 deer mice, but no jumping mice, in the 200 traps during the first day of the study.
The Denver Post File In this July 18, 2017, file photo, Alison Michael hunts for a mouse trap as she works on a study on the rare jumping mouse at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Broomfield.
File photo provided by the Center for Native Ecosystems This undated photo provided by the Center for Native Ecosystems shows a rare jumping mouse.
Show Caption The Denver Post FileIn this July 18, 2017, file photo, Scott Quigley, left, David Lucas, center, and Alison Michael head out to look at traps as they study the rare jumping mouse at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Broomfield. The group was trying to find out whether the mouse had survived and how much protection it needs up and down Colorado's booming Front Range. They found two meadow vole mice and 11 deer mice, but no jumping mice, in the 200 traps during the first day of the study.
Consultations with state highway contractors considered construction plans and likely impacts “and we are taking a second look at them to make sure they fall within what we initially anticipated,” Michael said, adding that 4.5 acres used for heavy machinery access must be restored as wildlife habitat.
How development can continue degrading habitat essential for protected wildlife and not be stopped by federal laws is a good question, said Fish and Wildlife regional field office supervisor Drue DeBerry. But the laws have led to less harm, compared with prior development west of metro Denver where Preble’s mice long ago disappeared, DeBerry said.
“Since then, projects are more thoughtful. There are efforts made …,” he said. “We reduce impacts where species are listed. We try to work on species recovery” where local partners are interested.
But wildlife survival and habitat along the Front Range ultimately will depend on what local leaders decide, DeBerry said.
“What sort of place do people want? Do they want a place where residents can interact with bald eagles? It really does boil down to local land-use decisions. We have our role and function but it is limited to what Congress directs us to do,” he said. “There is, maybe, an interest among some of the populace to try to look at the bigger picture and figure things out. People may be hoping the Endangered Species Act, or the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, are going to be a magic bullet. But the reality is they are not.”
Statewide, the bald eagle population has increased, with 202 active nests, including 12 along the Front Range in Boulder County and 48 in Weld County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife records show.
That indicates an overall population of about 400 bald eagles. Colorado’s statewide population increase falls within a nationwide recovery following the banning in 1972 of the pesticide DDT, long used on crops, which caused thinning of eagle eggs. Federal authorities in 2007 removed bald eagles from the nation’s list of endangered species.
Wildlife biologists now are investigating what happens where increasingly intense development, spurred by Colorado’s population growth and industrial expansion, disturbs habitat.
While housing and fossil-fuel development accelerated after 2014 across a 1,500-square-kilometer area north of Denver along Colorado’s northern Front Range, there’s been no gain in bald eagle nests, said Bove, referring to Front Range Nesting Bald Eagle Studies data, which is shared with government agencies and for which participants are seeking formal peer review.
Housing development closer than half a mile to nests causes eagles who typically spent 50 percent of their time at the nests to move away and instead spend 1 percent of their time at the nests, Bove said.
In Broomfield, an eagle nest west of Stearns Lake faced housing construction until bird advocates last year filed a lawsuit challenging a federal kill permit in court.
Yet even after that legal battle, construction within a half mile of the Stearns nest continued this month. Developers had set up hay bales at the edge of their bulldozed area, 530 feet from the nest where an eagle and her mate took turns sitting on two eggs. That’s closer than Colorado Parks and Wildlife considers safe.
Orange-clad roofing crews went about construction firing nail guns. Heavy trucks and commuters whizzed along the Northwest Parkway. Trains rumbled, towing chemical tanks and graffiti-splotched freight cars.
The eagles stayed, taking turns on the nest so they also could hunt prairie dogs over fields toward the lake. Bove recorded their movements in a notebook.
Homebuilding also is expected to proceed in Frederick near the nest where this previously displaced Erie eagle and her new mate have been warming two eggs. Town council members approved the installation of 79 new homes within a third of a mile of the nest. Construction work will begin March 30, town spokeswoman Megan Williams said. Developers of the Wyndham subdivision, who could not be reached for comment, are expanding beyond their existing 217 homes.
Frederick’s mayor and a town councilwoman didn’t return calls from The Denver Post asking to discuss the issue. Williams said that’s standard procedure, that Frederick officials do not discuss issues directly with reporters.
“Construction was approved before the eagles moved into the nest. We’re trying to do everything we can,” Williams said of the town’s decision to allow homebuilding on eagle habitat. A Colorado Parks and Wildlife district manager cleared expansion, she said, because initial approval for the subdivision was given in 2006 before the eagle established her nest.
Developers still must report to the town board the status of the eagles before a building permit is issued. It remains unclear whether Frederick could halt construction to preserve eagle habitat.
At Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Cannon said her agency’s half-mile buffer guidelines still apply in this case.
“I’m not sure why the town of Frederick thinks that, because they approved this development before the nest was established, the builder will not be responsible for any impacts to the nest. And we certainly do not ‘go along with it,’ ” Cannon said. “Our official comments on this development may have been solicited and submitted before this nest was established, but they are just that, comments on a proposed development based on conditions on the ground at the time.
“They do not give anyone permission to violate state or federal law and do not absolve any entity of their obligation to adjust to conditions on the ground appropriately.”
If the eagle’s eggs don’t freeze or fall, they’re likely to hatch in April. The eagles then would need healthy habitat to forage.
“It is not fair. Those eagles had a nest near that area in 2006 and another developer decided they didn’t want the birds there,” Bove said.
“How many houses does Frederick need? Instead of upping the density of housing in that one zone, have they talked about doing a conservation easement? Don’t they need open space? Why don’t they put money into that? Why don’t they consider, instead, other possibilities for that land?”
