Wildlife Refuge

16 Jun 2010--Went to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge today in the hopes of seeing a whole lot of wildlife, but that was not the case. This is a 15,000 acre park that has buffalo, elk, wolves, badger, etc., but it is a walking park, so you have to come upon them when you are walking the trails. It is best to be there early in the morning or just before dusk.


We weren't in the park maybe a half mile, had not even gotten to the visitor center yet, when we saw a deer, a whole field of prairie dogs, and this coyote. We think the coyote was probably hunting the prairie dogs. I absolutely love watching the prairie dogs run around from hole to hole...they look like little puppies.

At the Visitor's Center Cathy was playing in the child section.

This Refuge was a former WWII Army base established to develop chemical weapons as a hedge against Hitler, and after the war it was leased to private companies developing agricultural chemicals. Not surprisingly, a lot of the land and water became contaminated, and this area became a Superfund Site in 1987.

It is now run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, under the Dept of the Interior. I spoke to one of the young women who worked for the Service and she said she has a degree in Parks and Recreation, used to be a Park Ranger, but now does this. Pretty cool job to have, huh? And who knew there was even a college degree to be had in Parks and Rec??? haha She also told me that there were 551 Wildlife Refuges in the country, and they could be found at www.fws.gov if you are interested in finding one in your area.

The clean up will actually be finished this year...so that's 23 years of cleaning...I wonder how long it will take to clean up the gulf?

They have 9 miles of trails here for the public, and Cathy and I walked almost 4 miles of it. Unfortunately, all we saw was more deer, but they are cool to watch, so that was alright. Check out the bottom picture of Cathy on the trail, and see how close she is to the deer in front of her on the trail.

A little video for the nature lovers amongst us!