By Lindy Browning | Contributor, Rocky Mountain Voice
Sen. Perry Will told his constituents in a social media post “Brace yourselves, Garfield County,” after Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced that they will begin phase two of their wolf reintroduction program, adding insult to injury to western Colorado ranchers who have already seen the devastating impact on livestock on their northern neighbors.
CPW will be trapping and importing the next 10 to 15 grey wolves from Canada and placing them somewhere in Garfield, Pitkin and Eagle County.
Rio Blanco County was on the list of potential release sites, but has since been removed from that list due to the limited number of state-owned locations that would meet the criteria in the plan, in addition to the proximity to livestock, elevating the risk of conflict.
As stated in the press release, there were also serious concerns from wildlife managers and the public that releasing wolves in Rio Blanco County would have a serious and negative impact to elk and deer herds recovering from the severe winter of 2022-23.
State biologists declared the winter of 2022-23 “the worst winterkill of elk in 70 years in the northwest region of Colorado.”
CPW and big game hunters alike were astounded by the devastating effects on herds. As a result of the staggering number of big game animals lost, CPW made unprecedented and significant license reduction recommendations within this severe winter zone to account for high mortality rates experienced by mule deer, elk and pronghorn.
In an area known for some of the largest elk herds in the nation, severe winter conditions resulted in high elk calf and above-average cow mortality. Survival rates are the lowest Colorado Parks and Wildlife has ever documented and below what was previously thought possible in elk.
After multiple states, including Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, refused to send wolves to Colorado, the state finally reached out to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, in Washington, to trap and transport the animals they needed to meet the voter-imposed mandate.
Since that time, the tribe has rescinded its offer to supply Colorado with the wolves they needed, after finding out in summer 2024 that the state had failed to communicate with, and involve the tribes of Colorado in their process.
The state had to look further away to Canada to procure this next batch of wolves to transplant into a very reluctant western Colorado this winter. The wolves will be captured and released between December 2024 and March 2025.
CPW will work with the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship to capture and transfer the animals. CPW will be responsible for all costs associated with capture and transport according to information posted on the CPW website.
To date it has cost Colorado taxpayers almost $5 million dollars to import wolves to northern and western Colorado, where almost no one voted for them and almost no one wants them.
In a recent meeting between western Colorado livestock producers and CPW, one rancher from Gunnison pointed out that the state is already about a billion and a half dollars in debt and he wondered why the state would spend money when it’s already in debt on an experiment that he sees as a failure.
So far, of the 10 wolves that have been transplanted, one wolf has been killed by a mountain lion, one has been killed by another wolf, one has died without CPW naming a reason, and a mother and 4 pups have been captured and taken to a confined and undisclosed location after being found to be part of a mated pair that was killing livestock in Grand County. CPW was unable to trap her fifth pup and it is unknown how he will survive winter on his own.
So far, the experiment has failed not only ranchers, but the wolves themselves. Four of the 10 wolves have either died or are living in captivity.
All of this because urban voters, who are well meaning but not wildlife specialists or biologists, voted with a 1 percent victory margin, to reintroduce a species without knowing the unintended consequences to their neighbors on the west side of the state, nor the devastating effect on the very species they claim to love and want to save.
In order for the State of Colorado to implement the will of these well-meaning voters, the federal government had to make adjustments in their policy to eliminate conflict between state and federal law.
In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the Colorado wolf population as experimental under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. This provides management flexibility to Colorado Parks and Wildlife that would otherwise be prohibited.
In a recent meeting concerning the now failed Prop. 127 to prevent hunting of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx, former Wildlife Manager Ron Velarde told the group that Colorado Parks and Wildlife has a history that includes more than 125 years of professional and science-based wildlife management and conservation efforts that perpetuates all wildlife species. He said that ballot box biology never works out well for any of the species in Colorado, “not the predators and certainly not the prey species.”
“I prefer not to see another ballot initiative for wildlife management,” said Casey Westbrook, the board president for the Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association (CWEPA), quoting from their board of directors’ resolution dated Oct. 9, 2024.
The Resolution cites the Colorado law that reads, “Existing state statutes establish a system of authority and consistent regulation of wildlife conservation efforts that recognize the contribution and role of hunting and fishing as primary methods of wildlife management as well as require objectives that employ multiple-use management concepts (C.R.S. 33-1-101(4) and C.R.S. 33-1-104.”
Continuing, the resolution makes note that the existing authorities and processes of the Colorado Legislature and the CPW Commission provide fair and equitable opportunities for the citizens of Colorado to express their desires regarding wildlife management within the state.
CPW former and current wildlife managers have said in past interviews that the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation guide for best practices of wildlife professionals and their agencies, and those tenants are reinforced by Colorado laws and regulations and should guide wildlife conservation in this state.
The resolution concludes that the members of the Colorado Wildlife Employees Protective Association “hold it to be self-evident that all wildlife in Colorado is best protected, enhanced, and managed via the science-based wildlife management professionals employed by the State of Colorado for such purposes.”