Colorado state high school wrestling championships will require a negative COVID-19 test
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) issued updated guidance for the 2021 Colorado state high school wrestling championships in Pueblo Colorado on March 11-13.
A recently completed study shows a higher number of outbreaks associated with club or high school sanctioned wrestling events compared to other sports. Due to the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission in this setting, CDPHE is requiring that all athletes participating in the 2021 Colorado state high school wrestling championships be tested prior to competition. This stipulation is a part of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s variance to allow high school athletics during COVID-19.
Athletes may provide a negative test result conducted up to 72 hours prior to the day of competition or they will be tested upon arrival at the CDPHE testing center the day of the competition. Students who test positive will not be allowed to compete and must isolate.
Six-Mile Bike, Pedestrian Trail Extension Important Part of Road Widening Project
Aurora, CO: Bikers, walkers and rollers can rejoice in E-470’s announcement of the completion of the extension of the High Plains Trail. Running along the west side of the highway from Quincy Avenue to Stephen D. Hogan Pkwy., the six-mile extension of the High Plains Trail is the continuation of a multi-year phased approach to build an east metro regional trail network. This announcement comes just weeks after E-470 completed a road widening project that expanded the highway adding a third lane in both directions from Quincy Avenue to I-70.
The expanded trail provides a connection to five neighborhoods in the region and features a 10-foot-wide concrete path in addition to two-foot-wide shoulders, providing ample paved space for pedestrians and bikers.
“The expansion of the High Plains Trail represents E-470’s commitment to supporting our member jurisdictions and local communities through access to multi-modal transportation options,” said E-470 Executive Director Tim Stewart. “We value the many partners that support the expansion of this regional trail network, and look forward to seeing future expansion of the trail continue to connect communities in the region.”
Safety was a top priority for the expansion of the trail. Features include three grade-separated crossings at Hampden Avenue, Jewell Avenue and CO 30, along with one at-grade crossing at Quincy Ave. Environmental and floodplain considerations were also incorporated into the final selection of the trail alignment.
The Authority partnered with Arapahoe Parks and Recreation District to route the trail through the future Country Park just north of Quincy Avenue to improve the trail user experience. The City of Aurora will maintain the trail.
Additional tie-in and connectivity for the trail is being explored by local jurisdictions and stakeholders including the Town of Parker, Aurora and Arapahoe County, with the ultimate goal of connecting to the existing Cherry Creek Trail west of Parker Rd. Future E-470 road widening activities north of I-70 will incorporate additional extension of this east metro regional trail network.
Washington, D.C. – Today, Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D), a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and John Hickenlooper (D), a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, called on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack to support wildfire recovery efforts in Colorado after the state faced the three largest wildfires in Colorado history in 2020.
In the letter, Bennet and Hickenlooper highlighted the importance of USDA programs like the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) program to ongoing wildfire recovery efforts. While effective, these programs are often hamstrung by administrative hurdles and inconsistent funding.
“Last summer, wildfires consumed over 10 million acres across the country, with almost 50 percent burning on National Forest Service land. In Colorado, we saw the three largest fires in state history and over 350,000 acres burned on federal land,” wrote Bennet and Hickenlooper in a letter to Secretary Vilsack. “[W]e encourage you to use USDA’s broad discretion to maximize flexibilities as needed, and we stand ready to work with you in Congress to ensure that wildfire recovery programs have the funding and flexibility they need.”
“We appreciate your demonstrated commitment to our forests and watersheds and look forward to working with you in the months ahead to ensure that Colorado communities have a partner in the USDA as they recover from these devastating wildfires,” the senators concluded.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Bennet has consistently worked in Congress to improve EWP project delivery—urging the Government Accountability Office to review the program and introducing the Making Access to Cleanup Happen (MATCH) Act with U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to expedite cleanup and increase flexibility for local matching requirements.
In September, Bennet led U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) in urging the USDA to quickly approve EWP funding to mitigate and recover from wildfire damage. Days later, Bennet announced USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) approved the first tranche of EWP funds for $5 million worth of projects in Colorado to mitigate and recover from wildfires. Later that month, Bennet and a group of Western Democratic senators sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to provide additional federal assistance to improve the response to wildfires and assist the states, Tribes, and communities grappling with fires and their aftermath.
In October, Bennet joined his colleagues in asking the National Guard for a report on its readiness to help states prepare, fight, and recover from wildfires. Later that month, Bennet, Neguse, and Gardner sent a letter to the USFS and USDA NRCS to request that they work with the State of Colorado and local governments to address the threat posed by recent fires to the region’s watersheds and water supply. Bennet also urged Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to improve pay, job stability, and benefits for federal wildfire personnel. At the end of the month, Bennet visited Grand and Larimer counties to meet with local officials and first responders to assess the damage from the East Troublesome fire and the Cameron Peak fire.
In November, Bennet led Wyden, Gardner, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in two letters requesting that the Senate Committee on Appropriations include funding for wildfire recovery efforts in the West in the end-of-year appropriations.
In December, Bennet and the entire Colorado Congressional Delegation sent a letter to Trump urging swift approval of Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s request to designate Colorado’s wildfires as a Major Disaster to bring in needed recovery funds for the state. In January, the administration granted the disaster declaration.
The text of today’s letter is available HERE and below.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – A Colorado Springs man who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor poaching charges in three counties likely will never legally hunt again in Colorado or 47 other states after a Colorado Parks and Wildlife hearing examiner permanently suspended his hunting privileges.
Iniki Vike Kapu, 28, had been accused by Colorado Parks and Wildlife of illegally killing 12 deer, 2 turkeys and a bighorn sheep ram across the region.
Kapu entered one guilty plea in December 2019 in 4th Judicial District Court in Teller County.
Then in February 2020, Kapu appeared in the 11th Judicial District Court in Fremont County and pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a bighorn sheep. He also pleaded guilty to illegal possession of three or more big game animals.
A few days later, as part of the plea agreement, Kapu was fined $4,600 and sentenced to six months in jail and three years supervised probation in Fremont County.
Kapu forfeited all the weapons he used in the poaching incidents.
But that didn’t end his punishment. Last week, CPW hearing examiner Steven Cooley issued his decision permanently suspending Kapu’s hunting privileges.
“Mr. Kapu’s crimes against wildlife are the essence of what defines a poacher by taking wildlife without regard for the laws protecting them,” Cooley wrote in his decision.
“Iniki Kapu is viewed as a serious threat to Colorado’s wildlife and his violations are among the worst. The severity and level of indifference for wildlife in this case are rarely seen and cannot be tolerated.”
And because Colorado is a member of the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, Kapu’s lifetime hunting ban extends to the other 47 states that are members of the compact. Only Hawaii and Massachusetts are not yet members of the compact.
“Let this be a warning to anyone out there who is contemplating poaching wildlife in Colorado,” said Frank McGee, CPW area wildlife manager in Colorado Springs. “Colorado Parks and Wildlife aggressively pursues anyone who illegally takes wildlife. When you poach, you are stealing from all residents of Colorado.
“And your acts are an insult to all the hunters who follow the rules, who buy the licenses that pay for wildlife management, who respect the hunting seasons and abide by principles of fair chase.”
Kapu, who declined to participate in the hearing on his hunting privileges, has 35 days to appeal the lifetime suspension to the CPW Commission.
CPW had accused Kapu of illegally killing big game animals in Teller, Fremont and Chaffee counties. The Chaffee County case, also in the 11th Judicial District, wrapped up May 22, 2019, when Kapu pleaded guilty to illegal possession of wildlife and was fined $900.
Kapu’s plea agreements cap an investigation by CPW officers started by a citizen tip about illegal killing of wildlife in October 2018 linked to a red truck, stuck and abandoned on a remote road in the Pike National Forest.
It had a dead deer in the back and the meat was spoiled. In Colorado, hunters are required by law to prepare all harvested big game for human consumption. The removal of hides, antlers, heads and abandoning the animal’s meat can bring up to class-five felony charges against anyone suspected of the crime.
The guilty pleas capped months of investigative work by CPW officers Tim Kroening, Philip Gurule and Kim Woodruff as well as partner agencies including the Teller County Sheriff’s Office, Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Springs Police Department, the Wyoming Game and Fish Forensic Laboratory and 11th and 4th Judicial District Attorneys’ Offices.
Anyone with information of a possible crime against wildlife is asked to call CPW, or report it anonymously to Operation Game Thief, or OGT. Reach OGT by calling, toll-free, 1-877-COLO-OGT (or 877-265-6648). Verizon users can dial #OGT. Or email CPW at .
A $500 reward is offered for information on cases involving big game or endangered species, while $250 is offered for information on turkey and $100 for fishing and small game cases.
A Citizens Committee administers the reward fund, which is maintained by private contributions. The board may approve rewards of up to $1,000 for flagrant cases. Rewards are paid for information that leads to an arrest or a citation being issued.
To learn more about Operation Game Thief, visit the CPW website
Colorado expects to receive its first allotment of Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine this week. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Janssen vaccine on Feb. 27. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) anticipates receiving an order of 45,500 Janssen vaccines by Friday, March 5. The state treats all orders as estimates until it receives the doses. The Janssen vaccine will be available to eligible Coloradans as soon as Friday at a number of community vaccination sites across the state.
“We are thrilled to be able to distribute a third safe and effective vaccine in the state of Colorado,” said Dr. Eric France, chief medical officer, Colorado Department Public Health Environment. “The authorization of the Janssen vaccine will make it easier for the state to reach its vaccination goals as more people become eligible in the weeks to come. When it’s your turn to get a vaccine — whether it’s Moderna, Pfizer, or Janssen — I hope you choose to get it. With every dose administered, we are all safer and closer to ending this crisis.”
The FDA’s authorization comes after a series of clinical trials showing that the Janssen vaccine is safe and effective. Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which each require two doses, the Janssen vaccine requires only one dose. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both mRNA vaccines, while the Janssen vaccine is a modified adenovirus vaccine, which means it uses a different delivery system to train the immune system to fight COVID-19. Modified adenovirus DNA vaccines, like the Janssen vaccine, use a piece of double-stranded DNA to teach your body how to fight COVID-19. mRNA vaccines, like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, use single-stranded mRNA. The goal of every vaccine is the same — they just use a different strategy to achieve that goal.
None of the currently authorized vaccines is currently recommended over any other. All three vaccines are safe and work well to prevent moderate to severe COVID-19 disease.
PINE, Colo. – The Friends of Staunton State Park group along with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and numerous community supporters will begin Phase 1 of the restoration project of the Staunton Homestead Cabin. This project is paid for in part by a History Colorado – State Historical Fund grant.
Staunton State Park is looking for volunteers to participate in the restoration work.
Some basics:
Due to health restrictions, only eight volunteers may participate during the week session and they are asked to work all five days of the work week. Each session will least roughly eight hours per day for a 40 hour work week.
Interested volunteers can find the project through Historicorp or by calling 720-287-0100.
HistoriCorps staff will lead and train volunteers in the work.
Safety is one of HistoriCorps’ top priorities, and volunteers can contribute to a safe working environment by ensuring their physical fitness is adequate for the work. Please call the park office at 303-816-0912 if you are not quite sure if a project is a good fit for your skills or fitness level. We may be able to suggest a project more suitable and enjoyable for you.
Session 1: April 12- April 16 | 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Full)
In 1918, the Staunton’s homesteaded 80 acres in the beautiful Elk Creek Valley in western Jefferson County. By 1930 the ranch had expanded to 1,720 acres and included a logging operation and children’s summer camps. The Staunton Homestead Cabin, completed in 1918, is historically significant due to the activities of the Staunton family. Both Dr. Archibald and Dr. Rachael Staunton were prominent Denverite physicians and philanthropists. The rustic style of the Staunton Cabin and the Staunton’s medicinal work in the mountain community offers the potential to yield important historical teaching opportunities as it provides a window into Rocky Mountain living in the 1900’s.
Frances Staunton, the only child of Archibald and Rachael, lived most of her life on the ranch. In 1986, three years before Frances died, she willed the entire ranch, including the family cabin to the State of Colorado, with specification that the ranch become a state park so that all people could enjoy this beautiful place. Staunton State Park opened to the public in 2013.
Phase 1 of the restoration work will begin in early April 2021 and will continue through to the end of June 2021.
People interesting in helping but unable to participate physically can support the restoration project through financial donations by contacting for more information.
At a news conference held today in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado, Police Chief Michelle Tovrea announced the arrest of a suspect in the 1981 murder of Sylvia Quayle.
“I am proud to be able to tell Sylvia’s sister and brother-in-law that the men and women of our department have anticipated the opportunity to make this announcement for almost 40 years,” Tovrea said. “My thoughts are with the family, we can only try to understand the deep pain and sense of loss you have experienced. I am pleased there is a path moving forward to seek justice in her death.”
On Aug. 4, 1981, Quayle was found murdered in her Cherry Hills Village home.
The case remained open.
In January 2020, a partnership with Metro Crime Stoppers and United Data Connect led to new information regarding the case and a person of interest. More investigative work followed, and an arrest warrant was obtained in January 2021.
After working with both the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office and the Cozad Police Department in Nebraska, a suspect was taken into custody on February 10th.
Arrested was:
David Dwayne Anderson
DOB: October 7, 1958
Anderson is currently being held in Nebraska on the Cherry Hills Village warrant for first-degree murder, awaiting extradition. No court dates will be scheduled in Colorado until he is physically present in the Arapahoe County Detention Center.
Criminal charges are merely a formal accusation that an individual has committed a crime. A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
DENVER – Governor Polis released a statement following reports that the FDA has said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine protects against COVID-19.
“I’m thrilled that a third safe and highly effective vaccine will soon arrive in Colorado. Having a vaccine that only requires one dose will help us move more quickly to end the pandemic, and I encourage the federal government to not only approve, but ramp up supply as quickly as possible. We are ready to use many more vaccine doses than we are currently receiving each week.”
DENVER – Colorado Parks and Wildlife is promoting a new four-part educational video series on mountain lions.
CPW Director Dan Prenzlow said this video series was produced to tell the history of the mountain lion and living with lions in our growing state.
“Mountain lions are a fascinating yet elusive animal, but when they do pop on the radar they make for big headlines,” Prenzlow said. “Sightings of mountain lions are increasing and we’ve had a couple high-profile attacks in the last two years. Thanks to sound management practices implemented over the years, mountain lions are doing quite well in Colorado. The challenge going forward will be balancing decreasing habitats and our exploding human populations, since we share the same spaces. This video series is meant to lay that all out.”
Mat Alldredge, a wildlife researcher for CPW who is a leading expert on mountain lions, sparked the idea to create a video series to share information on lions with the public.
“We’re trying to present our mountain lion research in an informative manner that is accessible and interesting to the public and not in a dry, boring research paper,” Alldredge said.
Alldredge has been studying mountain lions for CPW since 2006. His study of mountain lions along the Front Range helped us assess mountain lion population demographics, movements, habitat use, prey selectivity and human interactions along the urban-exurban corridor. From his research, wildlife officials gained a better understanding of what mountain lions are doing in the urban-wildland interface.
Another focus in the series is the protection and management of mountain lions.
In the early 1900s, humans persecuted lions because of a lack of understanding, fear and interaction with their livelihood. The take of mountain lions was not only unregulated, it was encouraged with bounties paid.
That changed in 1965 when the mountain lion was viewed as a valued member of Colorado’s wildlife community. The Colorado Wildlife Commission changed the status of mountain lions from predator to game mammal and started protecting and managing them. Hunting seasons were established to regulate harvest to ensure populations were sustainable, allowing the species to recover after decades of widespread persecution.
CPW estimates there are between 3,800 to 4,400 independent/mature mountain lions, not including dependent young, in Colorado.
As human populations continue to expand into mountain lion habitats, human-lion interactions will continue to occur and make news headlines. With the increased use of new technology like home security cameras, people are able to see mountain lions far more often where in the past they would go undetected.
Of the 868 reports CPW received on mountain lions last year, about one in every nine of those reported seeing mountain lions on security or trail cameras around their homes.
“Ten years ago those items didn’t really exist in broad use, so that 100-plus sightings on security cameras are new and can’t really be compared to a time when we didn’t have Ring cameras everywhere,” said Mark Vieira, CPW’s Carnivore and Furbearer Program Manager. “Particularly around houses that aren’t in urban settings and are in mountain lion country, we’ve always had lions, especially at night, using areas around these houses. Homeowners just didn’t know it without cameras everywhere.”
Just over 17 percent of the mountain lion reports involved conflicts with livestock and 11 percent had deer as the source behind the call into CPW.
Images and videos used in the series were collected from across the state, from both residents and within the agency. David Neils of Wild Nature Media (wildnaturemedia.com) supplied many of the fascinating videos in episode one showing mountain lions in their wild state.
Ideas for future episodes in the mountain lion series include showcasing how wildlife officials come up with lion population estimates, predator-prey relationships and more general behavior attributes of mountain lions.
(DENVER) — Today the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) announced that since deploying Phase 2 of the Continued Assistance Act (CAA) on February 20th, it has paid more than $206 million to more than 130,000 people. Phase 2 allowed claimants to reopen and file new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) claims.
The Continued Assistance Act provides 11 additional weeks of federal PUA and PEUC benefits. Additionally, the act reestablished the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program, which provides unemployment recipients with an additional $300 weekly benefit.
All new PUA claimants will be required to go through ID.me verification. This is a federal requirement adding an extra step for claimants, however, it greatly reduces fraudulent activity. Claimants will have 21 days to do this and payment will not be released until it is completed. If a claimant has an integrity hold or locked account please complete the integrity hold online form. If a claimant does not have an integrity hold on their account, they do not need to fill out the form.
The Call Center will be open extended hours Monday, February 22 and Tuesday February 23 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
