About HerdKnowledge
HerdKnowledge was born from a simple frustration: Colorado Parks and Wildlife's hunting data is buried in massive PDFs that are nearly impossible to analyze. As a new hunter trying to plan a trip, I found myself downloading hundreds of pages, scrolling through inconsistent table formats, and manually copying data across multiple files just to answer basic questions.
As a data engineer, this was unacceptable. So I built HerdKnowledge to solve a real problem, not for profit, but because hunters deserve better access to the data that helps them make informed decisions.
The Problem
Colorado Parks and Wildlife stores harvest statistics in massive PDFs spread across seasons, each hundreds of pages long with tables in inconsistent formats. Population data lives in another PDF with yet another layout. To get any historical insights, you have to:
- Download multiple PDF files
- Scroll to the specific season and species section
- Copy numbers from inconsistent table formats
- Repeat this process for population data
- Do this for all available years just to get a complete picture
For a new hunter trying to compare success rates across units or understand population trends, this process is overwhelming and time-consuming.
The Solution
HerdKnowledge scrapes, cleans, and organizes all available Colorado Parks and Wildlife bow hunting harvest and population data into a searchable database. Using natural language processing, you can ask questions in plain English and get instant answers—no more scanning through PDFs.
What started as a way to plan a single hunting trip quickly turned into a data pipeline, and eventually became a public tool: HerdKnowledge.
What I've Built
- Natural language query interface for hunting data
- Colorado bow hunting harvest data (2019-2024)
- Colorado herd population estimates (2019-2024)
- Support for elk, deer, and pronghorn data
- Easy filtering by species, year, unit, and season
What's Next
HerdKnowledge isn't perfect, and I know there's room for improvement. I plan to iterate on it every chance I can. Here's what's coming:
More Data
I already have more big game data ready to load. I'll expand beyond Colorado archery data to include additional states, seasons, and hunting methods.
Mapping Features
Visualize data on interactive maps to see harvest patterns, population distributions, and success rates across game management units.
Continuous Improvement
Better query understanding, more data sources, improved performance, and features based on user feedback. This is a labor of love, and I'm committed to making it better.
Have suggestions? HerdKnowledge exists to serve the hunting community. If you have ideas for improvements or data sources you'd like to see, I'd love to hear from you.
The Mission
HerdKnowledge exists to make wildlife management data accessible to everyone. I believe that hunters, researchers, and conservationists shouldn't have to fight with PDFs to understand harvest trends, population dynamics, or success rates.
This is a free, open tool built to solve a real problem. No paywalls, no data harvesting. Just better access to the information that helps us all make better decisions in the field.