Colorado's fragile prairie ecosystem is at risk as Front Range development spills into the plains
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WELD COUNTY, Colo. — Graduate student Emma Balunek has been snapping photos of a pile of rocks since 2019.
The rocks are stacked at the very top of a hill covered in patchy cactus and stubby tufts of grass, just inside the western edge of the Pawnee National Grassland, which, from this vantage point, appears endless.
“It’s one of the highest points, so you have a 360-degree view of the prairie, so to the west you have, the mountain," Balunek said. "To the north, there’s these beautiful buttes along the Cheyenne Ridge."
A time-lapse camera mounted a distance from the base of the hill captures the scene every 20 minutes. Up close on the hilltop, a second camera is motion-sensor activated.
“Whenever something is there, the camera will take a picture,” said Balunek, who studies wildlife and conservation photography at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is planning to use photos from these cameras — and dozens more she has set up around the western edge of the grassland and four other sites in Eastern Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and New Mexico — as part of a broad prairie ecosystem conservation storytelling project.
“The short grass prairie is one of the most endangered ecosystems, because of the conversion to commercial agriculture and development and oil and gas,” she said.
The point of her conservation storytelling project is to raise public awareness of this endangered ecosystem, and — hopefully — drum up more interest in studying and protecting it.
Balunek is especially fond of this rockpile, because she said it's a beacon — a prairie crossroads of sorts — attracting an astonishing array of wildlife: golden eagles, rock wren, pronghorn, swift fox, and Balunek’s favorite: pairs of coyotes and badgers who team up to prey on nearby colonies of prairie dogs and are the focus of her graduate research.
“The species interactions that I see up here are from a wildlife standpoint, what I like most about this rockpile,” she said.
The point of her conservation storytelling project is to raise public awareness of this endangered ecosystem, and — hopefully — drum up more interest in studying and protecting it.
Balunek is especially fond of this rockpile, because she said it's a beacon — a prairie crossroads of sorts — attracting an astonishing array of wildlife: golden eagles, rock wren, pronghorn, swift fox, and Balunek’s favorite: pairs of coyotes and badgers who team up to prey on nearby colonies of prairie dogs and are the focus of her graduate research.
“The species interactions that I see up here are from a wildlife standpoint, what I like most about this rockpile,” she said.
But Balunek is concerned that all those animals that frequent the rockpile — and the entire surrounding ecosystem — are starting to be threatened by encroaching development. Since 2021, she’s watched three houses go up within a stone’s throw of the rockpile.
“The Front Range is expanding into the eastern plains for sure,” she said.
The Pawnee National Grassland is more than 190,000 acres of wild prairie, managed by the U.S. Forest Service and protected from most types of development. But the public lands lack continuity: The landscape is dotted with privately owned tracts that can be developed, and as the Front Range starts to spill onto these plains, one of the country’s largest untouched expanses of prairie habitat is coming under threat.
Threatened habitat
According to U.S. Forest Service research ecologist Brice Hanberry, even intermittent development like roads, fences, and structures disrupt animals' access to vital resources like water, hunting grounds, and migratory pathways.
“It fragments and breaks up those core natural resources. If you put blockades in the way, they can't move to where they need to get those resources. They will have greater energy demands to get to where they need to go, or they may just completely not decide not to go there because it seems too dangerous or stressful to do that,” Hanberry said. “Ultimately survival, growth and reproduction are reduced.”
Hanberry explained that most wild animals give a wide berth to developed land. So, in terms of habitat impact, the footprint of each house extends well beyond the property line.
“All of it is cumulatively a big problem for wildlife,” Hanberry said. “It is essentially removal of their natural ecosystems and wildlands. These are cumulative impacts and all kinds of interactions and cascades that we may not even know about or anticipate.”
The Front Range spilling onto the plains
But developing the prairie might prove irresistible to would-be homeowners priced out of the Front Range.
When Kimber and Randy Wheeler followed a job to Colorado in 2020, they initially hoped to buy a place in the mountains west of Fort Collins but landed on one of the lots near the rockpile.
“It was bare land with cows and prickly pear cactus,” Mr. Wheeler said, remembering their early encounters with the lot.
“We looked at this property and at first it wasn't appealing to us,” Ms. Wheeler said. “But with finances and the budget and everything that happened during COVID, this is the property that we ended up with."
Back then, fragile ecosystems were the last thing on their minds. They saw nothing but 10 acres of developable land and wasted no time putting in a fence, building a house, outbuildings and a paved driveway.
It wasn’t until they were settled that they had time to get curious about all the wildlife outside their backdoor. They started noticing the creatures scampering through the nearby hills, like the coyote with the white front leg who palled around with a particular badger they recognized from its distinctive facial markings. Then came the eye-opening conversations with the many prairie researchers who worked in the nearby protected lands. And as they were drawn deeper into the subtle drama of the life all around them on the prairies, their understanding of the grasslands evolved.
“Our perception of this place changed to the point of not just being a landowner, but now sort of being a land steward,” Mr. Wheeler said.
They called off their war on the prairie dogs, delighted in a natural playa that formed on their front yard when it rained, reserved a portion of their land for bird habitat, and now think of themselves as full-fledged prairie conservationists. But they concede they probably would never have come around if they hadn’t first settled the land and become intimate with it.
“You don't see it driving by the highway. You don't see it driving down 114 in your dust cloud in your car,” Ms. Wheeler said. “But when you're here, it talks to you. And it whispers and it molds you over time. And that whisper becomes part of your soul. And you just want to be part of what's going on here.
“I feel a little bit guilty because I’m part of the division of (the prairie). I see the destruction of something very, very special. If we let this disappear It won’t come back.”
But more and more of the landscape seems destined for development. Just behind the Wheelers' place, another 130 privately owned acres have already been subdivided and put on the market. To grad student Emma Balunek’s dismay, they cut even closer to her precious rockpile.
“That's all up for sale,” Balunek said from her perch on the rockpile, gesturing broadly to the landscape below.
She’s holding out hope for a conservation buyer to purchase the land — someone who appreciates the prairie ecosystem enough to protect it from future development.
“You can see there's a streambed that runs through it,” she said. “That's a really important movements corridor for pronghorn coyotes, badgers, the animals that need a larger expanse of habitat to survive.”