Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials release 1 of 5 gray wolves onto public land in Grand County, Dec. 18, 2023. This wolf is known as 2302-OR. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
Colorado officials have formally urged wildlife commissioners to deny a request to suspend the introduction of gray wolves as the state’s voter-mandated restoration program enters its second winter “release season.”
The staff recommendation from Colorado Parks and Wildlife was submitted to the 11 voting members of the Parks and Wildlife Commission on Saturday, ahead of an early January meeting where commissioners will weigh in on the petition, filed in September by a coalition of 26 livestock associations and other agricultural interest groups.
Despite a tense first year of reintroduction following the release of 10 wolves in Grand and Summit counties in December 2023, officials say the agency’s expanded efforts to prevent and manage conflicts with livestock provide a “solid foundation for the future” of the program.
“We’ve been listening to and working with all stakeholders in this historic restoration effort all year,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said in a statement. “The results are evident in our improved Conflict Minimization Program, the addition of new staff to work alongside producers, strengthened partnerships such as the Ad Hoc Working Group and the Colorado Department of Agriculture, and now clear guidelines for producers as it relates to chronic depredation and lethal management considerations.”
The state’s wolf reintroduction program fulfills a voter-approved 2020 ballot initiative to reintroduce the animals in Colorado in the name of restoring ecological balance. The measure, Proposition 114, was passed by a narrow 51% to 49% margin, and though it includes provisions to compensate livestock producers for animals the wolves kill, it has been bitterly opposed by Colorado’s ranching industry.
CPW officials confirmed the “depredations” of nine cattle and 15 sheep in 2024, though industry groups claimed in their Sept. 27 rulemaking petition that their “undocumented losses” are higher. The petition, led by the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association and Club 20, a coalition of Western Slope businesses and county governments, asks CPW commissioners to order a halt to further releases “until Colorado’s wolf management program is equipped to handle the consequences of these introductions.”
We’ve had no further wolf releases in the last twelve months, so we’ve effectively been on pause.
– Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project
The request followed on the heels of a controversy over the Copper Creek pack, the first breeding pack to be established in Colorado as part of the state’s restoration efforts. Following a series of livestock depredations in and around the Middle Park area, the two adults and four pups that made up the pack were captured beginning in late August. The adult male wolf, which CPW officials said had sustained serious injuries prior to its capture, died after several days in captivity.
“Given the turbulent start to this program, the program elements described below need to be funded and in place before any additional gray wolves are introduced in Colorado,” the petition said.
But CPW staff say many of those measures have been implemented in the ensuing months, including the creation of a state range rider program that will launch in early 2025. Range riders contracted by CPW and the state agriculture department will receive specialized training in deterrence and conflict mitigation techniques and will be deployed as needed throughout the summer and fall months when the potential for conflicts is highest.
Colorado wolf advocates and environmental groups applauded CPW’s recommendation against a pause and efforts to expand its management program.
“We’ve had no further wolf releases in the last twelve months, so we’ve effectively been on pause,” Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, said in a press release. “During that time, CPW and the Colorado Department of Agriculture have built out robust livestock conflict minimization programs, and addressed all the points raised in the petition — the CPW staff recommendation puts a fine point on all of that.”
Targeting a ‘self-sustaining population’
The state’s reintroduction plan, approved by the CPW commission in May 2023, calls for annual winter releases of 10 to 15 wolves per year in the program’s first three to five years, with an initial target of a stable population of at least 50 animals within the state.
In an Oct. 31 response to the ranchers’ petition, the agency argued that a pause would jeopardize its ability to meet its obligations under state law as mandated by Proposition 114. Already, despite plans to reduce a total 15 wolves in its first release season last year, the state agreed to reduce the number to 10 in response to pressure from ranching groups, Davis noted.
“Ten has become seven, and seven may become five or even four,” he wrote. “Such a small number of wolves cannot adequately serve as a founding population to a self-sustaining population. Pausing releases for a year would essentially set us back to square one, at considerable cost that will only have to be duplicated as CPW continues to work to meet the mandates of state statute.”
CPW announced earlier this year that it had reached an agreement with wildlife managers in the Canadian province of British Columbia to capture and relocate up to 15 wolves to Colorado between December 2024 and March 2025.
The task of sourcing wolves for Colorado’s reintroduction efforts has been complicated by a lack of cooperation from wildlife agencies in conservative-leaning Rocky Mountain states including Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and at least one agreement — a deal to capture and relocate wolves from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Nation in the state of Washington — has fallen through.
Wildlife advocates and CPW officials are also fending off efforts to restrict funding for the reintroduction program at the state Legislature, as lawmakers prepare to deal with a significant 2025 budget deficit.
“Colorado has already invested significant resources in planning, public outreach, and initial wolf releases,” advocates with a dozen conservation groups wrote to lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee in a Dec. 13 letter. “Cutting funding now would waste these investments and potentially require even greater expenditures in the future to restart the program.”
Overall, despite a contentious first year and the setback of the Copper Creek pack’s capture, wolf advocates have praised how CPW officials have navigated the challenges facing the reintroduction program.
“No project of this magnitude goes off without a few hiccups and opportunities for improvement,” Edward said. “We expected some conflict with livestock production. Likewise, that some of the freshman class of wolves perished for various reasons cut us to the core, but didn’t come as a surprise.”
“Despite these challenges, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has proven themselves a world class wildlife management agency,” he added.
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