Regarding David A. Lien’s linking e-bikes threat to elk habitat. Mr. Lien fails to mention oil and gas development, residential development, deer/elk proof fencing along highways. Mr. Lien also points to mountain bikes as threats while completely ignoring the “explosion” of ATV’s in the back country.
While I am no fan of e-mountain bikes on traditional hiking, biking and equestrian trails, neither these “bikes” or single-track trails are reasonably responsible for fragmenting elk habitat.
While I do share Mr. Lien’s disdain for e-bikes and e- mountain bikes in particular. I feel that Mr. Lien singles out e-bikes without mention of the plethora of other threats to Colorado’s elk population.
Once upon a time four hunters would crowd into an old Jeep and crawl in low gear to their hunting spot, then disperse on foot for the day; These days four hunters each have their own ATV to themselves.
At the end of the day elk populations are foremost threatened by human activity and development of all kinds; oil and gas fields, golf courses, homes, hay fields and traffic with highways lined with deer/elk proof fencing which really breaks up habitat.
In my experience the majority but not all hunters tend to vote Republican. Republicans are typically in favor of extractive resources such as mining, oil/gas development and logging as well as any profitable enterprise that our private and public lands may offer no matter what the habitat. The enemy to elk is not e-bikes but humans and their activity in general.
Mr. Lien, my daughter and I are both hunters, we own four Jeeps, I have lived in rural Colorado since 1980 and rural Texas prior to that, I don’t need a $6,000 mountain bike, a $3,000 scope attached to a custom rifle, a $15,000 ATV or a helicopter pilot to understand what the actual threats are to elk and their habitat.
If it’s not guns that kill people, but people, then it is not e-bikes that threaten elk, it is people.
Marco A. Diaz
Redstone
