As an out-of-state tourist who pays nearly 10 times more than a resident to bowhunt elk in Colorado, you’ll appreciate a little local gratitude for the $851.24 grant to the state’s wildlife management program.
But it would be woefully naive to expect that. So I wasn’t surprised when, on Sept. 21, I returned to the trailhead near Steamboat Springs after a 15-day wilderness backpacking trip and found no acknowledgement. The lack of recognition is nothing modern. Some Western hunters will forever complain about the “crowding” of nonresidents each fall, even though all U.S. citizens are equal owners of the huge federal lands of the West.
Colorado elk hunting is great fun, but it can also be depressing after acts of vandalism
