Editorials - The Journal

SAN JUAN NATIONAL FOREST – With a bound, a tumble and not a second of hesitation, three bear cubs fled the open crate and disappeared from the clearing. Two of the triplets paused for a moment, exploring the trunk of pine tree, before the trio scuttled down the hillside.“As soon as we’re gone, they vocalize, they’ll call to each other, and they’ll get back together,” said Michael Sirochman, the manager of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Facility in Del Norte.

The black bear cubs spent the better part of four months at the rehab center, where they were brought in July after they were orphaned. The sow broke into a home near Durango – a serious threat to human health and safety – and had to be euthanized. However, the 9-month-old cubs did not enter the home, said Area 15 Wildlife Manager Adrian Archuleta, and were given a second chance and sent off to Frisco Creek, where they would receive ample calories.

It was a busy year for CPW officials in Area 15, which covers the southwest corner of state. Bear reports nearly doubled over last year – 842 encounters or sightings were documented, up from 426 in 2023 and 274 in 2022. Sirochman hosted 25 bears at the state’s rehab facility, seven of which were captured in the Durango office’s jurisdiction. Five of those seven were released Wednesday on national forest land near Pagosa Springs. In captivity, Sirochman makes a concerted effort not to habituate the bears with humans. They are kept in a pen with blinds, shielded from the sight of humans. Staff members are careful not to speak near the pen, lest they train the bears to be comfortable with humans or associate voices with food.

“We don’t want them getting comfortable seeing people or hearing human voices,” he said. “So, when they encounter people in the wild, starting today, they will act like a wild bear and respond appropriately, retreat (and) leave the area.”The cubs are fed a mixture of whatever available forage they might naturally encounter in the wild and a protein-rich commercial feed. “Throughout their time there, we tried to introduce them to some natural foods,” Sirochman said. “We have gooseberries and currants and choke cherries nearby.” All of this is in keeping with the goal of raising bears that are not likely to engage in the kind of conflict behavior that led to the orphaning of these three cubs in the first place.

As winter nears, Sirochman starts to taper the cubs off a high-protein diet and replace it with produce in order to mimic the natural transition bears would experience in the wild. The decline in protein, paired with changing daylight and temperatures, signals to the cubs that winter is near, and triggers an instinct to find a den. The other pair of bears released Wednesday were given their last apple on a Friday, Sirochman said, and by Monday the pair was gathering material to build a den. In some circumstances, CPW will hold onto bears until they are large enough for release and situate them in a human-made den. About 25% of those bears will abandon that den, Sirochman said. “In some ways, I’d rather do a fall release where they have the advantage of dry ground right now to find a place and settle down,” he said. The triplet female cubs released Wednesday weighed somewhere between 80 pounds and 100 pounds, although in the wild they would likely weigh in the 50- to 75-pound range.

Given their good health, wildlife officials say the survival of the cubs through the winter is all but guaranteed. On average, cubs take six days to find a den after release from captivity. CPW has conducted many successful releases in that same location in the past, chosen in part because the surrounding aspens host understory vegetation that will bear springtime nutrients. And given the suitability of the habitat and past experiences, officials say these bears are unlikely to cause conflict with landowners or homeowners in the future. And to see the three bears, happy and healthy, bound out into the woods? That’s a win for CPW.“It’s definitely gratifying to know that we did some good and gave these bears a chance,” Archuleta said. rschafir@durangoherald.com

Triplets were orphaned after sow was euthanized following a home break-in

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Talk of persisting inequities prevails at Fort Lewis College screening of ‘Ute Water Legacy’Rocky Mountain PBS documentary series episode was shown Wednesday

The Southern Ute Indian Tribe and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe collectively own nearly half the 123,500-acre-feet of water sitting in Lake Nighthorse, and they have no way to access it. The federally built reservoir, formally called the Animas-La Plata Project, was built, in part, to settle the tribal claims to critical water resources. But a compromise in Congress in 2000 allocated funding for the construction of the $500 million reservoir, but not the infrastructure needed for dry land farmers in western La Plata County and the tribes to use the water. At an event Wednesday hosted by the Four Corners Water Center at Fort Lewis College, Rocky Mountain PBS screened a recent episode of the Colorado Experience titled “The Ute Water Legacy,” which detailed the evolution and apparent failures of the Animas-La Plata Project. The screening of the 27-minute episode and subsequent panel event, held before a crowd of about 80 in the college’s student union ballroom, were apart of the water center’s annual water week, an event that brings together stakeholders and students in conversation around water access, conservation and sustainability. Pagosa Springs filmmaker Christi Bode made the episode.

Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart, Southern Ute Vice Chairman and Colorado River Water Conservation board member Lorelei Cloud, water engineer Steve Harris and Hesperus farmer Trent Taylor all sat on the panel following the event, which was moderated by Celene Hawkins, who has a long history of working with tribes on water issues. The greater need for water than supply may have been an issue when Nighthorse was constructed in the early 2000s, but that issues has grown to a full-blown crisis today, tribal leaders say. And the need to either access their water or be compensated for it has grown too. And the right to water on paper is vastly different from what wonks call “wet water,” that is, water one can actually use.“The only way for us to protect our water is to use that water,” Cloud said. Heart, repeating a common refrain he coined, said the tribes water is in jeopardy because of the four U’s: “undeveloped, unused, unquantified and uncompensated.”

Recently, Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado’s two senators spoke out against a decision by federal officials stating the tribes are not eligible for compensation under the parameters of a new fund that would pay water users to decrease consumption. But The water rights have to be developed before the tribes can be compensated to not use their water, the Bureau of Reclamation said. The Ute water legacy is less a piece of history and more of a persisting inequity, Cloud and Heart indicated. Aside from a louder voice and a construction contract to build the Ridges Basin Damn, the tribes got very little out of the Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement Act that led to the construction of Lake Nighthorse. “We’re the losers in this whole thing,” Cloud said. “I don’t see much benefit other than driving by and seeing that water sitting there because we can’t use it. I don’t feel like we’ve gained a whole lot.”rschafir@durangoherad.com

Rocky Mountain PBS documentary series episode was shown Wednesday

Rare lunar event illuminates Chimney Rock National MonumentStone pillars, moon’s 18.6-year cycle and ancient structures tell a story

CHIMNEY ROCK NATIONAL MONUMENT – To archaeo-astronomers, the stone pillars that give Chimney Rock National Monument its name and the structures there built by ancestral Puebloan people send a message. “Something should happen here” – that’s the message Erica Ellingson, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado Boulder, hears. She studies, among other things, the relationship ancient cultures had to the sky.And something did happen at the monument Tuesday night: The moon rose between Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, demonstrating a rare celestial occurrence called the major lunar standstill. The event occurs monthly over the course of about two years on a precise, albeit lengthy 18.6-year cycle.The standstill is an anomaly of sorts in the moon’s cycle.

Just as the position of the sun’s rise and set travels across the horizon over the course of a year, the moon rises from different points on the horizon over the course of a month. But every 18.6 years, the moon’s orbit around the earth hits an extreme. For about two years – the period known as the standstill – the moon rises in an abnormally northern position. The ancient Puebloans took notice of this aberration, it seems.

About 1,000 years ago, between the years A.D. 900 and 1125, ancestral Puebloans on the northeast edge of the Chacoan society constructed more than 200 buildings at Chimney Rock. The structures, of which remnants remain today, include a Chacoan complex known as a Great House.From the Great house perched delicately atop a mesa – and only from that spot – a sliver of sky appears between the two offset pillars. “It begs you to think, what happens in this little piece of sky?” Ellingson said.

When the moon reaches its northernmost position during the major lunar standstill, it rises between the two rocks. The phenomenon has led researches to believe that the Chimney Rock Great House was built to serve as a celestial observatory.“The geology grabbed them and said, ‘Look at this thing. This is happening. It’s remarkable, it’s beautiful. Look!’” Ellingson said. “But other than that, this lunar standstill cycle is a very subtle thing. It’s every 18 years. It’s not practical. You can’t plant your crops by it, you can’t really do anything with it.”‘The moon does this wild and crazy thing’Chimney Rock is a sacred site to the descendants of those who inhabited it around the year 900. The monument, created in 2012 by presidential proclamation, is managed by the San Juan National Forest in collaboration with the nonprofit Chimney Rock Interpretive Association and in consultation with 26 tribes that claim a cultural affiliation.

The monument sits within the exterior boundary of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. Tribal members know the pillars as “Standing Rock.” “It’s a part of our cultural landscape,” said Cassandra Atencio, Southern Ute Indian Tribe historic preservation officer during a presentation before the moonrise Tuesday night. “… It’s built into our histories and our oral stories.”During the last standstill in the mid-2000s, the U.S. Forest Service allowed small groups of people to observe the event from a fire tower near the Great House. The tower was removed in 2010, leaving minimal space from which the event can be accessed by what forest officials say is a hazardous trail.SJNF officials announced in 2023 that the monument would be closed during standstill viewing events. However, the forest service announced earlier this year that it would hold livestream viewings of the standstill in partnership with Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Griffith employees, equipped with batteries, cameras and Starlink internet system, set up to stream the event to viewers in an amphitheater and live around the world.

“This is extraordinary location, extraordinary topographical feature, extraordinary history, and then the moon does this wild and crazy thing – who wouldn’t want to see it?” said Ed Krupp, the observatory’s director of 50 years. As many as 160 people attended the first livestream event in September, said Cody Cammack, Chimney Rock’s lead ranger. About 75 people filled out the frigid stone amphitheater Tuesday night at the last livestream event of the season. More viewings are tentatively scheduled for 2025.

“I’ve been looking forward to it,” said Jesse Carman, an archaeology student who traveled from Santa Fe for the event. Krupp, Atencio and Ellingson all spoke as darkness settled over the monument. At 10:01, the glow emerging between the two rocks on the screen (and on the actual horizon behind it) burgeoned into the edge of the waning moon. People have likely been observing this particular event in this particular location for a thousand years, experts think. Wood sampled from the Great House has been dated to the years A.D. 1076 and A.D. 1093-1094 – all years when major lunar standstills were observable.

“The ancestral Pueblo people built a Great House, the kivas, this complex up in the sky up at Chimney Rock to celebrate, to watch the moon rise,” Ellingson said. “And here we are, 1,000 years later, gathering here to watch the same moon do the same thing.”After the light faded from the narrow sky between Chimney and Companion rocks, the bundled masses returned to their cars and moon finished its rise, looking a little different.rschafir@durangoherald.com

Stone pillars, moon’s 18.6-year cycle and ancient structures tell a story

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Residents remove Free Land Holder fence from forest north of MancosDozens of community members gather to remove fencing in area that the Free Land Holder Committee claims as its ownDozens of people from Mancos and the surrounding area headed into the forest Thursday afternoon to remove a fence recently put up by a group called the Free Land Holder Committee. The fence is on disputed land between the group and the U.S. Forest Service. The Free Land Holder Committee erected it to claim it as their own. In a matter of a few days, they constructed 4.5 miles of the intended 6.6 miles of fencing, with the end goal of blocking off 1,460 acres near Chicken Creek and claim it as theirs.

They left openings in the fence for thru traffic and made it clear the public still had access, according to proclamations they posted around town. The Chicken Creek area is a popular recreation area in the San Juan National Forest.Public access or not, outspoken members of the community made it clear they were outraged by the fence, and they decided to take it down.

“They kicked a hornets nest in our community,” said Tim Hunter, a resident of Mancos and a member of the district Board of Education, who helped remove fencing.

No members of the Free Land group or officials from the San Juan National Forest Service were present.“The Sheriff does not want to see bloodshed, the Sheriff does not want to see any conflict,” said Bryan-Hammon, a Free Land Holder. “If we went there to defend it, it would escalate it and even worse, someone would get seriously or fatally hurt.” “So we agreed we will not go up there. We would rather repair a fence down the road than repair all these relationships,” Hammon said.

The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Department was there for some of it, until Sheriff Steve Nowlin left to go to a scheduled community event in Boyle Park at 2 p.m. to answer residents’ questions. “It’s not illegal to remove it,” said Nowlin. “I can’t do anything about it. I’m here to try and keep the peace and that’s all we’re going to do.”“I can’t stop anything,” he said. And though it wasn’t exactly a green light, it wasn’t a red one either, so people started removing the fence.“This fence is coming down,” said County Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer, who helped remove fence that that cuts across his cattle grazing permit. Koppenhafer said that land is where they run their cows, and a calf got separated from its mother because of the fence. When that calf loses weight, it costs him money, he said. “It’s nothin’ but a bunch of garbage,” Koppenhafer said. “No respectable cattlemen have ever used wire like that,” one of the people said of the barbed wire connecting the posts.Folks removing the fence were unsure where to put it. “It’s barbed wire, we can’t just leave it. It’s just as dangerous down as it is up,” said another. A few residents were there on a whim.“Fifteen minutes ago, my neighbor pulled up and says, ‘Want to go?’” said Bill Vaughn. He said, like many, he wasn’t sure whether he should come armed, or whether removing some of the fence would land him in jail. Others turned out in the name of defending access for recreation because they frequent the area to hike, bike or ride horses. Several female horseback riders who had ridden up there for some time, and often solo, said they don’t feel safe doing so anymore. They also said the wider trails with tire tracks on them were not there just a few days before. And if it is Forest Service land, the group that made the trails are subject to fines or imprisonment. “Why are we not being arrested? Why are we not being kicked off the land?” asked Hammon, a Free Land Holder. “They haven’t arrested us, and they need to be the ones to explain why.” Hammon told The Journal Thursday in a meeting at Boyle Park in Mancos that the group started building the fence last week, and the Forest Service met them up there with men, guns and a truck that read, “Law Enforcement.” “Our question is, why are you not arresting us? You got a gun, you’re law enforcement, you’re authorized. So why are you not arresting us? And why are you walking off our claimed lands when we tell you to, and you obey? Isn’t that telling?” he said.Hammon said there are people in the group from the Stubbs family, and back in 1899, the Stubbs’ homesteaded that land. After five years of living on it, the president had to sign a land patent title. Signed in 1906, that title gave the Stubbs family right to that land forever, as its “superior land holders,” he said. “That’s part of why we can build a fence. And that’s why the Forest Service can’t arrest us, cause that land was homesteaded in 1906 signed off by the President of the United States. They can’t supersede that authority,” Hammon said. Nowlin said it’s a civil dispute between the Free Land Holders and the Forest Service. “I used to work for the Forest Service. Where the hell are they,” said Ryan Borchers, a resident of the area for 27 years, as he gathered barbed wire. “It’s our land they’re supposed to be protecting.”“This is why people are so annoyed with government ... in an actual situation, they don’t show up,” said Borchers. “I’m not sure if they’re weak-spined or so caught up in bureaucratic ways they can’t do anything valuable.” The fence removal at Chicken Creek was nonviolent. The sheriff said there will not be any law enforcement presence there moving forward because of how shorthanded the department is. The gathering in Boyle Park at 2 p.m. was largely informative and a chance for the public to ask Sheriff Nowlin direct questions about what was going on. Pam Duncan, a resident who organized the Boyle Park gathering, emphasized it was to show support for public lands, and said, “we’d like everyone who enjoys public lands to come,” at a meeting at Fenceline Cider on Wednesday evening. For a little over five years now, The Free Land Holders have lived up there. Nowlin has done certified VIN inspections for them, so he’s known the group for some time now. Hammon said they had been planning and perfecting claims on that land for about five years, but took time doing research along the way. “We had to prepare ourselves before we took action because we knew there was going to be backlash. We didn’t know it was going to come from the community. That was a surprise to us, truly,” Hammon said. He also said the group is not anti-government or sovereign. “We are absolutely not anti-government, we do not declare ourselves sovereign,” said Hammon. “We are living men, living men, in The United States of America on free, patented lands.”Hammon said the Free Land Holder Committee is acting in accordance with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American war in 1848. They also reiterated that the group is not affiliated with Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, though some members are related to FLDS members by blood. They do not practice that religion or associate with FLDS. They also said there are Native people who are part of the Free Land Holder Committee.

Dozens of community members gather to remove fencing in area that the Free Land Holder Committee claims as its own

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