Mead Gruver, Associated Press

A ground-dwelling bird known for its elaborate mating dances on the southern Great Plains and in Colorado will no longer be federally protected. That's after the Trump administration agreed with three states and the beef and petroleum industries that the lesser prairie chicken was improperly listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Officials at Colorado's Telluride Ski Resort say it will close Saturday due to a labor dispute. The Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association voted this week to strike after contract negotiations since June failed to yield an agreement on pay.

The Trump administration is telling the state of Colorado it can no longer import wolves from Canada. That's according to a recent letter to Colorado wildlife officials from Brian Nesvik, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A dinosaur fossil has been found in an unlikely place, a hole drilled under the parking lot of a Colorado museum where dinosaur skeletons are on display. The find happened when the Denver Museum of Nature and Science was drilling to study possible geothermal heat for the building.

A pet kangaroo was on the loose in Colorado. Irwin got out in Durango on Monday, prompting a call to police. Officers followed the animal into a backyard and it was all captured on video.

Ski patrollers at the biggest U.S. ski resort have reached a deal to end a strike that put a wrench in operations during the busy holiday season. A joint statement released from the ski patrollers' union and Utah's Park City Mountain Resort said a vote was scheduled Wednesday on an agreement "that addresses both parties' interests and will end the current strike."

A judge has rejected a request to block a San Jose State women's volleyball team member from playing in a conference tournament on grounds that she's transgender. Monday's ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews in Denver will allow the player to continue competing in the Mountain West Conference women's championship in Las Vegas this week.

A "mega den" of rattlesnakes at a remote location in northern Colorado is now available for live, round-the-clock viewing online.

Six conservation groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a recent U.S. government decision not to protect wolves in northern Rocky Mountain states as an endangered species. The groups argue in the federal lawsuit filed July 2 in Montana that those states are exercising too much leeway to keep the predators' numbers to a minimum.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider reviving a critical approval for a railroad project that would carry crude oil and boost fossil fuel production in rural eastern Utah. The justices said Monday they'll review an appeals court ruling that overturned the approval issued by the Surface Transportation Board for the Uinta Basin Railway. Arguments will be in the fall.