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Tag: Wildlife Management

Colorado Ranchers Say Wolf Plan Built on Lies and Broken Promises
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State, Approved, The Coloradoan

Colorado Ranchers Say Wolf Plan Built on Lies and Broken Promises

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan PITKIN COUNTY — Distrust of Colorado Parks and Wildlife's implementation of the wolf recovery plan runs as deep as the Capital and Sopris creek drainages where longtime ranching neighbors Mike Cerveny and Brad Day run around 700 cattle combined. The two buddies from Wisconsin moved to the stunning Roaring Fork Valley about 30 years ago and have been steadily building their herds on leased ranches, unable to buy their own property due to the high cost of land 20 miles from ritzy Aspen. They admit there are plenty of challenges ranching among multimillion dollar homes steadily squeezing the ranches they lease. But the latest challenge is a gut punch that staggered the steady ranchers because it happened so quickly, secretly in conjunction with ...
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Wolf Program Hits $8 Million as Critics Ask Who Really Benefits
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State, Approved, Colorado Politics

Wolf Program Hits $8 Million as Critics Ask Who Really Benefits

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Colorado has now spent more than $8 million over five years on the wolf restoration program, according to a presentation made at Thursday's Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting in Grand Junction. Justin Rutter, the assistant director for financial and capital services at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, also addressed the apparent discrepancy between the General Assembly's Blue Book estimate of the annual program cost, which is around $800,000. He noted a caveat in the Blue Book language around the program's cost, one that said, "actual state spending will depend on the details of the plan," developed by the commission, and the cost to compensate for livestock losses caused by wolves. Those additional costs since the ballot measure...
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Montana may approve 500-wolf hunt in effort to restore big game herds
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Cowboy State Daily, Approved, National

Montana may approve 500-wolf hunt in effort to restore big game herds

By Mark Heinz | Cowboy State Daily Montana is considering setting a wolf kill quota of 500 for the 2025-2026 wolf seasons, nearly half of its wolf population. It would allow hunters and trappers to take as many as 15 wolves each.  Montana is considering setting a wolf kill quota of 500 for the 2025-2026 wolf seasons, allowing hunters and trappers to take as many as 15 wolves each.  If hunters and trappers fill the quota, it would cut Montana’s wolf population roughly in half, leaving about 550 of the predators, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) reports.  Some argue that’s extreme overkill and indicates that Montana is trying to eradicate wolves. Others claim it’s sound predator management, and 550 wolves would still be more than enough to keep them from being re-...
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Rancher gets additional $100K for livestock wolf kills in 6-5 CPW commission vote after heated debate
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Rancher gets additional $100K for livestock wolf kills in 6-5 CPW commission vote after heated debate

By Tracy Ross | Colorado Sun The Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission voted 6-5 to compensate rancher Conway Farrell after a heated debate that revealed division on the commission. A rancher who received $287,408 in compensation for livestock killed by wolves in 2024 was granted an additional $100,046 on Thursday, after the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission narrowly approved his latest claim.  The vote on the table was for the commission to adopt CPW staff’s recommendation to deny rancher Conway Farrell’s claim for direct losses of 89 calves during the time wolves were known to be attacking his sheep and cattle in 2024. The commission voted 6-5 to reject the guidance, effectively granting Farrell’s request.  Commissioners Gabriel Otero, Eden Vardy, Frances S...
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Ranchers Beg for Relief as Colorado Wolf Attacks Mount
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State, Approved, The Colorado Sun

Ranchers Beg for Relief as Colorado Wolf Attacks Mount

By Tracy Ross | The Colorado Sun Only a few ranchers were expected to come to the meeting held in Chris Collins’ shop on the McCabe Ranch in Old Snowmass, which smelled of the smoked venison sausages cooking on the grill, horses on jeans, and a mixture of sweat and anxiety. They’d come on the evening of June 11, after the first day of the monthly Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting in Glenwood Springs, where wolves were not on the agenda. The omission shocked everyone, because of what had recently happened. Over on the Lost Marbles Ranch, which borders the McCabe Ranch in a wide valley where the price of sprawling, remote ranches reflects their proximity to Aspen, the first wolf pack to form following the start of Colorado’s reintroduction program in December 2023 had e...
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Ballot Bait-and-Switch? Colorado Gray Wolf Plan Bleeds Taxpayers Dry
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State, Approved, CBS News

Ballot Bait-and-Switch? Colorado Gray Wolf Plan Bleeds Taxpayers Dry

By Shaun Boyd | CBS News Colorado Parks and Wildlife told an interim legislative committee it has spent about $3 million to relocate 30 wolves to the state over the last two years. That's more than double what voters were told it would cost when they approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. The Blue Book estimated it would cost about $800,000. Ranchers say, not only is the cost of the program out of control, the management of it is off the rails. "A depredating pack was known to have depredated in Oregon before they put them in Middle Park," Tom Harrington, a cattle producer in Roaring Fork Valley, told lawmakers. "They had serious impact there. They packaged them up, put them away for awhile. And then, they put them back out -- right in my backyard." Harrington and other ranch...
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When Wolf Management Becomes a Weapon Against the West
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Approved, KPAX, National

When Wolf Management Becomes a Weapon Against the West

By: Caroline Weiss | KPAX MISSOULA — The future of northern Rocky Mountain wolf protections came before a federal court in Missoula on Wednesday. The hearing was the latest in a long battle over Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves. Lawyers for the federal government and conservation groups squared off in front of U.S. District Court Judge Donald W. Molloy, presenting arguments about the merit of a petition denied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) over federal protections for regional gray wolves. Gray wolves are currently protected under the Endangered Species Act in the Lower 48, except in the Northern Rockies region. Wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Utah do not receive federal protections. Conserv...
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McCombie: Initiative 82 revives push to restrict hunting, override expert conservation
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Approved, Commentary, NRA Hunters' Leadership Forum, State

McCombie: Initiative 82 revives push to restrict hunting, override expert conservation

By Brian McCombie | Commentary, NRA Hunters' Leadership Forum Colorado anti-hunters are making yet another push to wrest control of that state’s wildlife from wildlife professionals. This time, it is the recently proposed Ballot Initiative 82, the “Colorado Wildlife & Biodiversity Protection Act.” At its core, Initiative 82 would create an independent commission parallel to the current Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. This independent commission would then draw up legal protections for unnamed “keystone species” and assess financial penalties for any violations of these protections. If approved by voters in the state’s 2026 election, $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars will fund this commission. It then will decide what exactly are the “keystone species,” though observers ...
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Message still matters: How Caliber Contact’s Pollie-winning campaign helped defeat Colorado’s Prop 127
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Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Message still matters: How Caliber Contact’s Pollie-winning campaign helped defeat Colorado’s Prop 127

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When Colorado voters rejected Proposition 127 in 2024, they didn’t just weigh in on mountain lions and bobcats – they delivered a decisive verdict on who should shape wildlife policy. In the state’s first failed wildlife ballot measure since 1992, 54.7% voted no.  Behind that result was an award-winning campaign by Caliber Contact, a Republican firm that reframed the issue through a values-driven lens by tapping into safety concerns, protective instincts and the voice of everyday Coloradans – over celebrity advocates.  Caliber Contact’s work is once again making headlines after the firm received two Pollie Awards this month for this very campaign – reminding the political world how strategic messaging helped sway one of Colorado’s most h...
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