Keep Wildlife Wild
As springtime starts calling more of us into the outdoors, it’s important to be aware that human activity can put extra stress on wildlife surviving on depleted food supplies. This month, we hope all of you will join us in educating residents and visitors alike to care for the extraordinarily diverse populations of wild animals that call Colorado home.
See below for a collection of shareable messages, including our one-minute “Keep Wildlife Wild” video. You’ll also find the “Trash the Trash” video — created with support from Stewardship Partner Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) — highlighting ways to protect wildlife from the effects of trash.
Many thanks also to Stewardship Partner Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), which provided so many valuable, sharable articles for this month's messaging. CPW has been managing Colorado’s 960+ wildlife species and their habitats for 124 years. Thank you, CPW, for all you do to keep Colorado’s wildlife wild every day of the year.
Happy spring and thanks for sharing!
Help Us Share the Care for Colorado Monthly Messaging
Please feel free to share these assets on your own channels — just be sure to credit the partner organization and link back to their site.
Blogs & Articles
- CTO Video: "Keep Wildlife Wild" and Tips to Respect Wildlife
- CTO/GOCO Video: "Trash the Trash"
- Leave No Trace: 7 Principles — Respect Wildlife
- Leave No Trace: Respect Wildlife kids' exercise
- Leave No Trace Video: Three Tips to Respect Wildlife
- CTO: Care for Colorado Wildlife Quiz
- CTO: Colorado Wildlife Viewing graphic
- CPW: Spring Wildlife Advice
- CPW: Ethical Wildlife Viewing Tips
- CPW: Living With Wildlife
- CPW: Your Fishin is Our Mission
- NPS: Watching Wildlife
- USDA: Don’t Feed Wildlife
#CareforColorado Social Posts
Use one of these ready-made social posts or share these captions with your own photos or videos. Be sure to tag @leavenotracecenter and @visitcolorado in your posts.
- Always watch or photograph animals from a safe distance to avoid startling them or forcing them to flee or charge. #CareforColorado
- Don’t disturb wildlife (like shouting to get their attention) to get a better photo. #CareforColorado
- Control your pets — A dog can frighten wildlife and distract them from performing tasks vital to their survival, such as finding food. #CareforColorado
- Show respect and restraint by teaching children not to approach, pet or feed wild animals. #CareforColorado
- Don’t encircle or crowd wildlife, or tease and attempt to pick up a wild animal. Young animals, removed or touched by well-meaning people, may be abandoned by their parents. #CareforColorado
- Keep an eye out for signs of bears, like tracks, poop, clawed trees and so forth. #CareforColorado
Tips for Sharing
Remember the more often visitors see these messages, the more likely they are to put these practices into action. Consider sharing this month’s messaging in the following ways:
- On social channels
- On websites
- In e-blasts
- In a signature box
- On closed-circuit television
- In a reservation confirmation
- In blogs
- In visitor centers
- In-room media
- In restroom posters
- At a campground or RV site
- At your front desk
Newest Stewardship Partner: Colorado State Land Board
The Care for Colorado Coalition now includes 28 Stewardship Partners with the addition of the Colorado State Land Board. This Board is made up of five citizen volunteers, chosen by the Governor and confirmed by the Colorado State Legislature, overseeing an operation that owns, stewards, and leases four million acres of trust land to earn money for Colorado public schools. (See full list of Coalition members here.)
Welcome to our new Stewardship members:
- Lively Tours and Talks, owned and operated by Dave Lively, specializes in providing the most engaging guided tours into Rocky Mountain National Park.
- Crested Butte/Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce is the voice of businesses in the community, advocating for the needs of businesses, large and small.
A Stewardship Success Story
How Parking Issues Are Being Addressed In The Buffalo Pass Recreation Area
The Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association used a Colorado Rural Academy for Tourism (CRAFT) Recovery Mentor program by the Colorado Tourism Office in fall 2020 to design and implement destination-management solutions for the busy Buffalo Pass recreation area during the 2020/21 winter travel season.
To address overcapacity in parking the @stmbttrailheads Twitter account was developed for the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association, the U.S. Forest Service and Steamboat PowderCats to share parking lot images and updates on parking capacity at Dry Lake and other high-use winter trailheads. This destination-management tool was established to offer nearly real-time alerts during busy periods and discourage illegal parking and overcrowding. Read more about this case study here.
If you have any case studies you would like to share, please email them to Barb Bowman at barb.bowman@colorado.com.
Care for Colorado Resources
Please use the following CTO Toolkits as your main resource for accessing stewardship and responsible-travel content to include the Care for Colorado Principles, videos, brochures, downloadable posters and more.