Seven Animals, Five Hours, 20 Miles

One morning early this week, as I turned onto Highway 133 toward Carbondale, I watched a young buck weave through traffic. Minutes later, driving toward Aspen, I passed a freshly killed elk calf and a deer near Aspen Village, an abandoned SUV with a crushed front end nearby. On my return trip, I witnessed a large buck struck by a vehicle near Red Hill, left alive but paralyzed as cars swerved around him on the blind curve. In less than five hours, on a 20-mile stretch of road, I encountered seven dead or dying animals.