Ranchers, Conservationists Work Together In Eastern Colorado

KARVAL, Colo. (AP) — Karval, a town too small for a gas station, is preparing for its annual Mountain Plover Festival this week. That has ranchers and conservationists reflecting on a partnership that saved a buff-colored bird nearly designated endangered, and that spurred tourism on the Colorado plains.

The Denver Post reported Monday that over a decade ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wanted to put the mountain plover on the endangered species list. Landowners agreed to let biologists flag nests so farmers and ranchers wouldn't run over them while cultivating fields.

After scientists determined the plover population had stabilized and the government decided not to list it, Karval, 130 miles southeast of Denver, began to see the bird as an economic opportunity. Now birders come from afar for the three-day festival, with the 10th annual edition starting Friday. Costs range from $50 for a single event to $200 for the complete package. Visitors spend time with ranchers and farmers, tour private land and eat home-cooked meals, including a Saturday night chuck wagon dinner. The closest hotels are in Hugo and Limon, so ranchers and farmers open their homes to visitors.

Ranchers and conservationists ride along with visitors on school buses seeking nests that are so hard to spot bird watchers call the mountain plover "the ghost of the prairie."

Third-generation rancher Russell Davis had to be persuaded to attend that first meeting between conservationists and ranchers. Now, he's one of the nation's leading private landowner conservationists and will be speaking in August at a national symposium, "Innovations on the Land: Managing for Change."

Chris Pague, senior conservationist at The Nature Conservancy in Colorado, told the Post Karval has been a leader in rancher-conservationist cooperation.

Bird festivals "are all over the country and this is a really small one, but the message they're giving out is phenomenal," Pague added. "They're a really great example of the new relationship between the land, the rancher and the general public."

Karval's experience might bring to mind the effort involving federal conservationists and ranchers to save another bird, the greater sage grouse. The Obama administration said last year that because of a cooperative effort, the grouse did not require Endangered Species Act protections. But in the case of the greater sage grouse, found in 11 Western states, a management plan has been challenged in court by ranchers and miners who say it restricts economic growth as well as by conservationists who say it doesn't do enough to protect the bird.

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