what wild animals live in colorado?
Lark Bunting
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 Its wild creatures include black bear , bobcat , Mexican wolves , elk , Gila monsters , coyotes , rattlesnakes , cougars , skunks , and red foxes , as well as cranes , golden eagle , red @-@ tailed hawk , and great horned owls . In keeping with Navajo tradition , none of the zoo 's birds were captured for the purpose of being exhibited , but were rather rescued after sustaining injuries from vehicles or electrical lines and are thus unable to fly ; the majority of the other specimens are also non @-@ releasable and unable to survive in the wild due to being orphaned or having been confiscated as illegal pets from their former owners . 

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 Because of the colder climate , ectothermic reptiles are all but absent , with two species of garter snake and the western painted turtle being the only three reptile species proven to exist . Similarly , only six species of amphibians are documented , although those species exist in large numbers . After a forest fire in 2001 , a few park roads were temporarily closed the following year to allow thousands of western toads to migrate to other areas . 

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 More than 1 @,@ 600 species of plants grow in the Colorado River watershed , ranging from the creosote bush , saguaro cactus , and Joshua trees of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts to the forests of the Rocky Mountains and other uplands , composed mainly of ponderosa pine , subalpine fir , Douglas @-@ fir and Engelmann spruce . Before logging in the 19th century , forests were abundant in high elevations as far south as the Mexico – U.S. border , and runoff from these areas nourished abundant grassland communities in river valleys . Some arid regions of the watershed , such as the upper Green River valley in Wyoming , Canyonlands National Park in Utah and the San Pedro River valley in Arizona and Sonora , supported extensive reaches of grassland roamed by large mammals such as buffalo and antelope as late as the 1860s . Near Tucson , Arizona , " where now there is only powder @-@ dry desert , the grass once reached as high as the head of a man on horse back " . 

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 Species lists for the park include about 50 mammals , 86 birds , 11 reptiles and amphibians , 8 bats , more than 200 arthropods , 8 snails and slugs , 75 butterflies , more than 55 moths , and 8 aquatic macroinvertebrates . Of these species , 160 are found inside the cave . Outside the cave , black @-@ tailed deer , Steller 's jay , common raven , and Townsend 's chipmunk are among animals often seen in the park . Less commonly sighted are black bear , cougar , northern flying squirrel , and Pacific giant salamander . Springs and other wet places support flatworms , frogs , and snails . 

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 Subsequent ashfall from eruptions in the Cascade Range in the late Miocene contributed to the Mascall Strata , layers of stream @-@ deposited volcanic tuffs laid atop the Picture Gorge Basalt . Preserved in the Mascall are fossils of animals such as horses , camels , rhinoceroses , bears , pronghorn , deer , weasels , raccoons , cats , dogs , and sloths . These fauna thrived in the monument 's open woodland and savannah between 15 and 12 million years ago . The fossils of oak , sycamore , maple , ginkgo , and elm trees reflect the area 's cool climate during this time period . 
