Scientists and community volunteers are in the process of surveying every plant, animal and insect across the state. It's a massive undertaking that's entering its third field season.
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"We still joke that this is an airplane we are building while we are flying it," said David Anderson, director of Colorado Natural Heritage Program.
Anderson spoke at an event in Fort Collins this week hosted by CNHP. Stakeholders and guests gathered at Colorado State University to talk about the survey and hear from those doing work.
The Statewide Natural Heritage Survey began in 2024 with the goal of collecting data in every county. Surveyors have made their way through all kinds of landscapes and terrain, using partnerships with property owners and tribes to access land.
Wetland Ecologist Clark Hollenberg and a fellow botanist even hitched a ride down the Yampa River with a rafting trip to survey Dinosaur National Monument. Hollenberg's tale of searching for rare plants had the arc of a great treasure hunt.
"We're climbing over boulders and just scrambling as hard as we could to try to get to this precious plant - and we sure were rewarded - right at the very top of this scree slope, exactly where our friend had pointed out, we did find erigenon wilkenii," he said.
Erigenon wilkenii is also known as Wilken Fleabane - an extremely rare white flowered plant.
The search for elusive species took on detective work for others. Community scientist Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero of the nonprofit Great Old Broads for Wilderness spoke about collaborating with CNHP on the survey.
"We've been given access to herbarium records of rare plants that haven't been observed for 20 or more years," Sumrall-Ajero said.
Their job was to see if these plants were still around and how they were doing.
Early on, Sumrall-Ajero said, they figured out they had to do additional research to make sure they were looking in the right spot. A record that referenced "Horsetooth Gulch" was a mystery, since no one - including Sumrall-Ajero, who lives in the area - had ever heard of this place.
"I went to the Fort Collins local history archive, and a curator helped me do some searching of some old newspapers," she said.
They found a paragraph in a newspaper clipping from 1920 that referenced "Horsetooth Gulch" in a bulletin about a car crash near Butler's Ranch. From that bit of information, Sumrall-Ajero was able to solve the geographic riddle and will search for the plant specimen this summer.
There were many stories of discovery at the March meetup, and a palpable enthusiasm from those involved. When the survey is complete, the Heritage Program hopes the data will help communities develop conservation plans and foster sustainable recreation. In the meantime, it's bringing together science and community in a very special way.
