Western Colorado is prime elk country.
To maintain or enhance that habitat, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation provided funding for about 60 different projects both independent of and linked to the Uncompahgre Plateau Collaborative Restoration Project, designed to enhance migration corridors, winter range and calving areas.
This decade-long, hands-on series of landscape treatments positively impact 570,000 acres on the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests near Grand Junction.
One particular project utilized hydro-axe heavy machinery that removed clusters of ponderosa pine, pinyon-juniper and overgrown shrubs that choke out quality forage. Crews followed that up with seeding.
The result is a rejuvenated forest floor covering nearly 900 acres that springs forth with native grasses, forbs and improved sage brush vegetation benefitting elk, deer and a wide variety of other bird and animal life.Restoring elk country is core to RMEF’s Managed Lands Initiative.
Since 1984, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and its partners completed more than 11,000 conservation and hunting heritage outreach projects that protected or enhanced more than 7.6 million acres of wildlife habitat.