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As the wolf reintroduction fight howls in Colorado, wildlife officials are fielding more reports from people who suspect they\u2019ve spotted a wolf in the wild.<\/p>\n
A release from Colorado Parks and Wildlife last week noted they are tracking a wolf in Jackson County and a pack of six wolves in northwest Colorado. The agency reported a \u201ccredible wolf sighting\u201d in the Laramie River Valley of Larimer County and posted photos of a \u201clarge wolf-like animal\u201d spotted by campers in Grand County. Wildlife biologists also reported that analysis of scat from the pack in Moffat County revealed the presence of a parasite that can lead to hydatid disease in livestock, deer, elk and moose. Through a rare chain of events that involves people inadvertently eating infected poop, people can contract the disease from dogs.<\/p>\n
Voters will decide on wolf reintroduction<\/a> in November with a ballot measure that directs Colorado Parks and Wildlife to begin reintroducing 10 gray wolves a year in the state starting in 2023.<\/p>\n Wolf reintroduction opponent Denny Behrens \u2014 who leads the Stop Wolf Coalition, which includes the support of commissioners from 39 rural Colorado counties \u2014 last week warned in a fundraising email that the discovery of disease in wolf scat presents \u201ca major public health and safety threat in Colorado.\u201d His group filed open records requests for reports from state biologists analyzing the pack in Moffat County.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t let pro-wolf radicals put people at risk for their insane agenda,\u201d wrote Behrens, who last year traveled to Idaho to interview an unidentified woman who suspects she contracted hydatid disease from wolves.<\/p>\n Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists studied scat from wolves in Northwest Colorado and determined that several members of the pack were infected with a parasitic tapeworm common in wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The Echinococcus tapeworm is transferred through eggs in the scat of wolves, dogs and coyotes to sheep, cattle, goats, moose and elk that eat the feces and contract hydatid cysts. Dogs can catch the disease when they eat an infected animal and people can catch the disease when they accidentally ingest soil, food or water contaminated by dog waste.<\/p>\n \u201cHuman cases are rare,\u201d reads the Centers for Disease Control page on the Echinococcus parasite.<\/p>\n Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n