One of the main hurdles I hear from beginning and experienced outdoor enthusiasts is access to places they can hunt and fish which provide some reasonable chance of success. Along those lines Colorado Parks and Wildlife has for some time administered a program known as “Walk in Access.” This program partners with farmers, giving them a chance to receive some income for property they set aside for hunting access and maintaining habitat.
The program provides an atlas of properties in the state that are part of the program and posts each property. For the most part hunters can hunt these areas without having to approach the landowner for permission. For a land owner to participate in this program they must provide suitable habitat. For some time the backbone of this program was the Conservation Reserve Program. The last few years have seen substantial decline in CRP. In response Colorado Parks and Wildlife in partnership with Pheasants Forever and several other entities has launched the initiative Corners for Conservation.
Trent Verquer from CPW joined me on 104.3 The Fan Saturday to discuss the program. The idea is to take the corners of pivot irrigated farmland, which doesn’t get watered and is hard to farm and turn them into wildlife habitat and enroll them in the Walk in Access Program. Not only would this provide additional hunting access, but improved habitat for not only pheasants, but deer, other birds, pollinating insects and other animals.
Since these corner parcels are small they are strategically developing areas that include several parcels or are next to existing Colorado State Wildlife areas. To date they have enrolled and developed 677 acres on 82 parcels with great success. These numbers are a drop in the bucket to what they plan to develop if the funding is available.
The program provide additional access for outdoor recreation, but it is a win win for the farmers and anyone who enjoys the outdoors in Colorado.
Information on Colorado Parks and Wildlife “Walk in Access” program can be found online their website.
Here’s the full interview with Verquer
Below is a news release from Corners For Conservation with details of the program:
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new program between Pheasants Forever and Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Corners for Conservation is a new initiative that has resulted from the generous contributions of Pheasants Forever, High Plains Land Conservancy and The Muley Fanatics Foundation, thereby allowing CPW to successfully obtain a Voluntary Public Access-Habitat Improvement Program grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service National Headquarters that contains a habitat establishment component. This concept was initially pitched to partners in 2014 and after several unsuccessful attempts at obtaining funding, a successful VPA-HIP application finally provided the avenue to realize this concept.
Corners for Conservation will be delivered through our Pheasant Habitat Improvement Program model, further expanding a partnership that began in 1992. This new program will initially focus on the corners of center pivot irrigation circles. Corners for Conservation will focus on establishing tall warm season grasses, forbs and legumes, in the core Colorado pheasant range in Kit Carson, Yuma, Phillips, Sedgwick, Logan, and Washington counties. The program has received very positive response from landowners and we have a waiting list of landowners wanting to participate. 677 acres on 82 parcels were planted in the spring of 2016 and will be available for public access in fall 2016. Projects are being planted to a diverse mix targeted to maximize habitat quality for upland game birds, grassland birds, big game and beneficial pollinating insects.
The outcome will be excellent nesting and brood rearing habitat for upland game birds, premier hunting cover, and diverse habitat benefiting mule deer, pollinators and non-game wildlife alike. The hunting public will benefit as every acre enrolled in this program is required to be in CPW’s Walk-In Access program. Pheasants Forever, Muley Fanatics Foundation and High Plains Land Conservancy have made this program possible with an annual commitment of $65,000 for the next three years. CPW, via the successful VPA grant and re-prioritization of Terrestrial Programs funds, is currently investing an additional $195,000 annually in developing Corners for Conservation.
We are hoping to expand this program in future years to include buffers around currently farmed playa wetlands. Playa wetlands are key wetland features for migrating and wintering waterfowl in northeastern Colorado. Although an ephemeral wetland type, playas have the ability to produce abundant, high quality food sources that are heavily utilized by dabbling ducks when the playa basins are wet.
Across the eastern tier of counties in northern Colorado, many playas are currently farmed which can impair the full expression of plant composition, and thus duck forage, on these sites. In an effort to protect playa vegetative function, playas can be retired from farming and buffers planted around the edge of the basins which will allow the plant communities to function naturally. We are hoping to expand Corners for Conservation by enrolling playa basins and an upland buffer that we will establish to diverse grass and forb habitat that will buffer sediments, herbicides, and pesticides from entering playa wetlands, maintain their function during wet periods, and provide excellent habitat for upland wildlife, grassland birds, and pollinating insects during both wet and dry years. Buffering these wetlands with grassland cover also will improve water quality entering the playas.
Playa wetlands are very valuable to the Ogallala aquifer as they are the primary source of recharge to this aquifer. The Ogallala aquifer is the lifeblood of irrigated agriculture and communities over a wide expanse of northeast Colorado outside of the South Platte River cooridor. As with the pivot corner option, if we are able to add this practice to Corners for Conservation, all of these acres will be enrolled in CPWs walk-in access program.
