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OSMP closes 2024 with wildlife camera highlights, trail openings and restoration wins
Summary
Open Space and Mountain Parks staff used the Dec. 11 meeting to show a wildlife camera montage, describe restoration milestones (more than 300 acres restored, 153 acres of forest thinning), new trail openings and infrastructure grants totaling about $1.7 million, and to preview 2025 priorities.
At the Dec. 11 Open Space Board of Trustees meeting, OSMP deputies closed the year with a round‑robin of department highlights and a wildlife camera montage showing animal activity across the system.
Christian Newitz, OSMP wildlife ecologist, presented a video of remote camera highlights and said the program has collected roughly 98,000 photos over 15 years and detected 134 species on OSMP properties. He noted a particularly rare capture of a western spotted skunk. “Probably the most interesting, the rare species that we captured was a spotted skunk,” Newitz said.
Service‑area summaries included trail and access work (new trail openings at Boulder Valley Ranch, North Sky and Cobalt Trail, Marshall Mesa trailhead work, and adaptive‑bike accessible trail features), infrastructure investments and electrification pilots (Cherryvale campus electrification, added EV chargers), resource stewardship achievements (restoration on over 300 acres of agricultural land, 153 acres of forest thinning, more than 17 miles of ditch maintenance), and operational statistics (staff cited about 6 million visitor visits per year).
Deputies reported grant successes: roughly $1.7 million in grant awards this year to support projects including Mount Sanitas work, EV chargers and electrification efforts, and a $143,000 award for a youth corps to support trail work in the coming season. Staff also highlighted progress on long‑running remediation at the Varra pit and management‑area designations and planning work on Fort Chambers that received city recognition.
OSMP’s community connections and volunteer teams noted awards and program growth for volunteer naturalists, junior rangers and inclusive programs such as Out In Nature (OIN) that reach LGBTQ+ participants. Staff emphasized partnership with the Boulder Open Space Conservancy and community organizations as central to program delivery.
The director reminded trustees the board application period for city boards and commissions opens in January and confirmed the January OSBT meeting date will be Jan. 15, 2025.
