{"id":24233,"date":"2024-12-24T13:08:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T20:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ranchers-at-odds-with-colorado-governor-over-wolf-reintroduction\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:50:11","slug":"ranchers-at-odds-with-colorado-governor-over-wolf-reintroduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ranchers-at-odds-with-colorado-governor-over-wolf-reintroduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranchers at odds with Colorado governor over wolf reintroduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Parks and Wildlife placed GPS collars on two wolves in North Park on Feb. 2. Male wolf 2101 has a gray coat and is in the foreground on the right. Male wolf 2301, believed to be the offspring of the gray colored wolf, has a black coat and is in the background on the left. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The meeting was humming along until a county commissioner asked the question he\u2019d been \u201cbiting his tongue\u201d trying not to ask.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 3, Gov. Jared Polis had wrapped up his opening remarks during the 2024 Winter Conference of Colorado Counties Inc. and was fielding questions from the audience full of leaders from the organization\u2019s member counties.<\/p>\n

Most were focused around the newly announced state budget that goes into effect July 1, and how the projected $750 million shortfall could impact rural communities.<\/p>\n

That back-and-forth between Polis and CCI members was respectful, said Kelly Flenniken, executive director.<\/p>\n

But when Grand County Commissioner Merrit Linke asked why Colorado was continuing to push forward with its wolf reintroduction program, which has cost $4.8 million since voters approved it in 2020 and has another $2.1 million allocated to it for the remainder of fiscal year 2025, the \u201cvibe\u201d of the meeting turned adversarial, Flenniken said. \u201cAnd it didn\u2019t need to be like that. I think our members walked away feeling kind of bruised after that. And I\u2019ve been scratching my head wondering, \u2018How did we get here? Why did it end like that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s reintroduction of grey wolves has been rocky since mostly urban voters in 2020 chose to bring them back through Proposition 114, which passed by a razor-thin margin. Ten wolves were released in Summit and Grand counties last December with what leaders there have called a lack of warning and transparency.<\/p>\n

In spring, a pair of wolves that established a home range near Kremmling \u2013 where they denned and had five pups \u2013 killed a confirmed 18 sheep and cattle, and rather than euthanize the adults, as ranchers requested, CPW trapped all but one pup and moved them to an undisclosed location, where the adult male died. The agency says they will rerelease the wolves, known as the Copper Creek pack, in January.<\/p>\n

CPW has since been working overtime with Colorado Department of Agriculture ahead of the next release of 10 to 15 wolves starting in January to beef up communications, training and resources for ranchers to prevent future livestock attacks. But in September, ranching groups petitioned the CPW commission for a \u201cpause\u201d in the program, which CPW staff on Dec. 21 recommended the commission deny.<\/p>\n

What Linke, who is also vice president of the Middle Park Stock Growers Association, wanted during the CCI meeting was more intel on why CPW was pushing ahead to get its next round of wolves from British Columbia, when it was surely going to cost a bundle.<\/p>\n

Polis said Colorado will continue gray wolf restoration because it is the will of the voters, and that CPW wouldn\u2019t have had to go Canada for the next round of wolves \u201cif ranchers wouldn\u2019t have said, \u2018Oh, don\u2019t get them from Wyoming, don\u2019t get them from Idaho.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, if their organizations \u2013 Middle Park and those guys \u2013 say to Wyoming \u2018give Colorado wolves\u2019 they probably would,\u201d he added. \u201cThe only reason they\u2019re not is they hear from ranchers that they shouldn\u2019t, so that drives up the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

But statements from Wyoming and Idaho officials suggest that\u2019s not true, and it has ranchers, rural leaders and lawmakers calling Polis an adversary of agricultural producers, the only population negatively impacted by wolves since the first 10 were released last year.<\/p>\n

Wyoming was never going to give Colorado wolves<\/div>\n

In a Dec. 16 email to The Colorado Sun, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said, \u201cWyoming\u2019s position hasn\u2019t changed (on giving Colorado wolves) since the question first arose back in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, Gordon told news outlets Wyoming\u2019s wolf management plan was working \u201cbecause it\u2019s designed to manage wolves in biologically and socially suitable habitats and to keep wolves out of areas of the state where conflicts would be highest.\u201d<\/p>\n

His statement acknowledged Wyoming\u2019s \u201cpredator zone,\u201d which comprises all land outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, where anyone can kill an unlimited number of wolves on site, without a license. The predator zone extends to Colorado\u2019s northern border along which real estate broker Ken Mirr, founder of Mirr Ranch Group, says there are a lot of big ranches. And Gordon reasoned that if transplanted wolves traveled back into Wyoming, it would lead to conflicts with humans, \u201cand resolution of conflicts with humans are almost always deadly to wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his Dec. 16 email, Gordon wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s important to reiterate that Colorado\u2019s approach to wolf management is completely different from Wyoming\u2019s. Here, we remain committed to maintaining populations in suitable habitat and managing for social acceptance in other parts of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idaho refused, too<\/div>\n

Meanwhile, Idaho leaders had other concerns when they discovered Colorado was considering asking for gray wolves in the spring of 2023.<\/p>\n

In a June 6 letter to Davis, Idaho Fish and Game Director Jim Fredericks wrote that although he appreciated the working relationship between Idaho and Colorado fish and wildlife management agencies, he was declining CPW\u2019s request because \u201cIdaho\u2019s experience leads us to conclude that negative impacts of wolves sent to Colorado will not stay in Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

Included in that experience was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s inability \u201cto live up to its assurances about delisting the Northern Rocky Mountain (wolves) when criteria were achieved and surpassed because of multiple lawsuits\u201d that continue today, Fredericks wrote.<\/p>\n

Ten years after Idaho\u2019s reintroduction, delisting litigation involving Idaho wolves continued \u201cdespite populations that remain robust and resilient,\u201d he added, creating concern \u201cthat the implications of ESA-litigation related to the translocation of wolves into Colorado will not be isolated to Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Fredericks told Davis \u201cthe prolonged inability to delist wolves under the ESA (Endangered Species Act) and strong disagreements over how they should be managed have fostered mistrust and social conflict among our rural communities, hunters, trappers, other outdoor recreation users, agricultural interests, wolf advocates, conservation organizations, and governmental entities. The result is a strain on many of the very relationships that are critical to future conservation efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge of coexistence is a daily affair forever,\u201d says Mike Phillips, a longtime wolf advocate and wildlife biologist who advises Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. \u201cBut the question we really should be asking Idaho is can you really give me the facts of the problems? There\u2019s no dead people, no demonstrable impact on the big game or the recreational killing industry, and no demonstrable impact on the livestock industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Brothers and sisters\u2019 making things difficult<\/div>\n

Phillips was one of the architects of Colorado\u2019s wolf restoration plan, leading CPW\u2019s technical Wolf Technical Working Group on restoration from its inception.<\/p>\n

He also served in Montana\u2019s Legislature from 2013 to 2021. And though he can\u2019t prove Colorado ranchers badgered Idaho, Wyoming and Montana into withholding wolves, he\u2019s adamant that Western lawmakers \u201cwanted to make things difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got conservative lawmakers in Montana saying, \u2018Oh my gosh, we can\u2019t saddle our brothers and sisters in Colorado with the mess that is coexisting with gray wolves. So we\u2019re going to make things as difficult as possible\u2019\u201d by saying, \u201c\u2018sorry, governor, but we\u2019re not going to be part of the problem.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And when it came to Gordon expressing concern for the wolves if they wandered back over the border, Phillips said, \u201cWe kill all kinds of gray wolves in Montana. In Wyoming, it\u2019s even worse. And the same in Idaho. Clearly, so many decision makers in the three states don\u2019t value wolves. So (their decisions) had everything to do with them standing in solidarity with the brothers and sisters of Colorado that were bothered by the very idea of wolves being restored via reintroductions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Linke nor Tom Harrington, president of the Colorado Cattlemen\u2019s Association, have heard of individual ranchers or members of the association pressuring the three states to withhold wolves from CPW.<\/p>\n

However, Harrington told The Sun some Wyoming lawmakers, \u201cbeing stockmen themselves,\u201d aren\u2019t going to want to send wolves to Colorado, \u201cknowing the havoc they\u2019re going to wreak in areas where livestock is pretty naive to wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, he acknowledged CPW has been working to educate ranchers on a multitude of nonlethal techniques to haze them away from livestock.<\/p>\n

When asked about Polis\u2019 comments at the CCI meeting, Harrington said he would tell the governor: \u201cThe failure of this program and the cost of these programs are due entirely to your impatience, to not being prepared. CPW has told people for years that the science is not right. Introducing wolves in Colorado is not a good fit. Yet they chose to defy that scientific knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n