COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KOAA) — Starting December 2, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) will begin low-altitude helicopter flights to assess big game herds in southeast Colorado.

CPW says the assessments will be from Trinidad to Leadville and east of I-25.

The flights are used to learn more information about individual herds. The flights allow CPW biologists to determine how many deer, fawns, and elk calves have reached six months old, indicating the herd's health.

Collected data is used for several purposes, one being determining the number of hunting licenses for each species for the following year.

“Each year, CPW biologists inventory hundreds of thousands of animals statewide to develop a picture of the productivity and composition of big game in Colorado. The data is critical to o

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