Article Contributed on: 10/16/2008 1:23:25 PM
The Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) Board has awarded two land trusts - the Trust for Public Land (TPL) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) -- $945,000 in Lottery funds for conservation easements on two ranches in Douglas and Elbert counties.
The TPL project is Spring Creek Ranch in Douglas County. GOCO's $520,000 grant will be used to place a conservation easement on this horse ranching operation located within the Middle South Platte River watershed. Spring Creek runs through the ranch for about 0.8 miles and has nine acres of riparian habitat associated with it. There is habitat for elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, bears and bobcats. It is a buffer to the Pike National Forest and acts as a wildlife corridor into the National Forest from Perry Park. This project creates an opportunity to protect native grassland and forest that provide habitat to a wide range of animals in an area where an increase in land values is making it more and more difficult to protect larger properties like the Spring Creek Ranch.
The TNC Project in Elbert County to which GOCO awarded $425,000 is the Jumping Cow Ranch. A conservation easement will be purchased on 7,040 acres of the Ranch and is the first of two phases that will ultimately protect the entire 24,295-acre property. The area has rolling short- and mixed-grass prairie with cottonwood gallery forests, wet meadows, and small intermittent streams, including Wilson and East Bijou Creeks. It represents a unique mixed-grass prairie, one of the most altered and under-protected grassland systems of the Great Plains that is particularly threatened in Colorado because it occurs primarily along the Front Range. This project will provide a critical linkage for wildlife between the open expanses of eastern rural counties and the protected natural areas along the I-25 corridor. The Jumping Cow Ranch area still hosts unbroken wildlife corridors and expanses of prairie large enough to support wide-ranging species such as Pronghorn antelope.
Great Outdoors Colorado is the result of a citizens' initiative passed by Colorado voters in 1992. GOCO receives approximately $53 million annually from Lottery proceeds, and directs those funds to projects that protect and enhance Colorado's parks, wildlife, trails, rivers and open space. http://denver.yourhub.com/CastleRock/Stories/Sports/Story~535928.aspx
