Your 2 Cents’ Worth: Monday, Dec. 5

Denver Zoo’s new Down Under habitat is set to open Friday, May 24, with a dozen-plus Australian and New Zealand animals taking over the former Bird World exhibit. Billed as the zoo’s first immersive area, the $7.8 million project invites visitors to walk through the same area where wallabies and red kangaroos live — with no fences or ropes to separate them — but not interact with them.

One more weekend is all you get if you want to ski Winter Park before it closes for the season. The resort hangs up its boots on Memorial Day, marking its second-longest season at 207 days, exceeded only by last year’s 211 days. Winter Park has recorded 406 inches of snowfall through the season, including five since Tuesday.

At least one of Colorado’s 11 wild wolves entered the watershed surrounding Vail in the last month, according to a new map released Wednesday showing where the canines traveled recently. Wolves also traveled farther south of Interstate 70 into the heart of Summit County, near Frisco, Silverthorne and Dillon, between April 23 and May 21. Each month, Colorado Parks and Wildlife releases a map showing which watersheds the state’s 11 known wolves have traveled in.

By MIKE STOBBE and JONEL ALECCIA (Associated Press) A Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu — the second human case associated with an outbreak in U. S. dairy cows. The male worker had been in contact with cows at a farm with infected animals. He experienced mild eye symptoms and has recovered, U.

U. S. 50 near Montrose could partially reopen to traffic by July 4 as repairs to a damaged bridge over the Blue Mesa Reservoir begin, transportation officials announced Wednesday. The Colorado Department of Transportation and Kiewit Infrastructure announced an official repair plan for the bridge that includes four main areas, according to a CDOT news release. Inspections over the past month identified 118 defects in four main areas on the Blue Mesa Reservoir bridge, CDOT officials said.

One hundred and one years ago, my Ute ancestors were forced to live within a barbed-wire camp in Blanding, a small town in southeast Utah. For six weeks, nearly 80 people were trapped in a cage, sleeping in tents and hastily constructed hogans. Only meager meals were provided, and the captors sometimes tossed food over the fence. Like the infamous Japanese American prison camps during World War II, the only crime my relatives committed was belonging to a group of people that the white majority deemed a threat.