So who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf? Hunters who see fewer elk, ranchers worried about their cattle, and sheep men forced to adopt new herding techniques. I’m a big game hunter. Why would I promote more competition for the cow elk I like to shoot? Because I believe in intact ecosystems. I believe hard science trumps superstition and false facts.
It’s been over a decade since the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission convened its Wolf Working Group. It’s time for a new working group to convene and for wolf education sessions to start as well. The latter were a goal in the group’s original report but they have never taken place.
Would wolves change Colorado ecosystems? Yes, but first, they have to get here, and that’s anything but easy. Wolves would have to cross the Red Desert of Wyoming and Rio Blanco and Moffat counties where many ranchers carry rifles in their pickups. A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told me that wolves are coming, but “there’s all those guns between us and the Wyoming wolf packs.”
That’s why official reintroduction is important. In the Mount Zirkel, Maroon Bells, Raggeds, or South San Juan wildernesses, we only need a breeding pair. Just two wolves. A young male and female with amorous intent.
In June 2004, a wolf died along Interstate 70 after being hit by a car. Five years later, in 2009, a GPS-collared wolf traveled 3,000 miles before dying from a banned poison in Rio Blanco County. In April 2015, a coyote hunter accidentally killed a gray wolf near Kremmling, 100 miles west of Denver.
Wolves are coming, slowly. Colorado Parks and Wildlife even has a 10-year-old plan, “Findings and Recommendations for Managing Wolves that Migrate into Colorado.” Strategies involve adaptive management and damage payments for livestock killed. What’s more, “Migrating wolves should be allowed to live with no boundaries where they find habitat,” and “Wolf distribution in Colorado will ultimately be defined by the interplay between ecological needs and social tolerance.” Once here, state wildlife staff “will implement programs to make sure that wolves are included as a part of wildlife heritage.”
If wolves are returning, why not also reintroduce them and boost genetic diversity? Yet in 1982, 1989, and again last month, the state’s Wildlife Commission voted to oppose “the intentional release of any wolves into Colorado.” That decision is regrettable.
Source: Wolves are already headed for Colorado. Let’s make it official. — High Country News
Comments
Why is it man feels as though they have any right to destroy what God has given to his earth? God mad the wolves and all their ways, we made guns,we destroy what he gave us and we THINK it’s ok? It’s NOT! The wolves don’t come after us like we do them ! They only do what God made them to do. We can protect out Nation, but, can’t find a way to protect livestock or wolves without killing them?? We aren’t as evolved or as intelligent as we like to fool ourselves into believing are we? You want to impress me and a billion other people? Then leave then be, and find a way to do what’s right! Not just what’s easiest!! IT’S WRONG!!