Colorado releases 5 wolves into wild as part of reintroduction effort

The newcomers are the pioneers of a first-in-the-nation effort to reintroduce an endangered species to the wild at the behest of voters, rather than the government. It came three years after the narrow passage of a ballot measure calling for their return to a state from which wolves had been extirpated nearly a century before.

What followed were protracted stakeholder deliberations, public hearings and objections from ranchers and hunters, as well as last-minute lawsuits from the livestock industry that unsuccessfully sought to delay the release.

But celebration of “paws on the ground” dominated this week, as the two males and three females loped across a frosty field into their new habitat, where advocates hope they will be the start of a thriving population that one day could complete a chain of canis lupus from the northern Rockies to the Southwest.

“Today, history was made in Colorado,” said a statement from Gov. Jared Polis (D), who was there when the wolves were released in Grand County on Monday. “For the first time since the 1940s, the howl of wolves will officially return to western Colorado.”

“Western” is a key word and source of contention. The ballot measure, which mandated the state begin reintroducing wolves by the end of 2023, was heavily supported in urban areas east of the Rockies and widely opposed on the rural Western Slope, where the releases are taking place.

That opposition grew in recent years as a few wolves migrated down from Wyoming — where a shoot-on-sight policy had long been an obstacle to significant numbers of the animals making their way south — and took up residence in northern Colorado. Ranchers there began reporting dead cattle, sheep and working dogs.

Some of those wolves crossed back over the border and ended up being hunted, feeding conservationists’ arguments that Colorado would need to bring in wolves if it ever hoped to have its own population.

Colorado is bringing back wolves. On this ranch, they’re already here.

The state ultimately sought and was granted approval by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage the animals as a “nonessential experimental population,” which allows ranchers to kill wolves attacking livestock. The state also set up a program to compensate livestock producers for up to $15,000 per animal slain by wolves and said it would devote staff and money to minimizing such conflict.

“This isn’t a choice between ranching and wolves or between hunting and wolves,” said Matt Barnes, a rangeland scientist with Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative who sat on an advisory group that made recommendations as the state crafted its plan. “We are still going to have ranching. We are still going to have elk hunting. And we are going to have a more complete ecosystem at the same time.”

Until recently, it was unclear where Colorado would get its first wolves. Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — red states that allow wolf hunts — all declined to donate the predators. Then Oregon, a Democratic-dominated state like Colorado, offered 10 in October.

The five celebrities — two pairs of juvenile siblings from two Oregon packs and an adult from a third pack — were shot with tranquilizers from helicopters Sunday, then crated and flown east. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said its scientists will repeat the process until at least 10 to 15 wolves are in the state by mid-March. The plan is to release 30 to 50 over the next three to five years, “using wolves captured from nearby northern Rockies states from several different packs,” the agency said.

As video of the wolves’ release circulated this week, advocates cheered. Colorado is “richer, wilder and more resilient,” WildEarth Guardians said. “Living alongside wolves and other wildlife is part of life in the West,” Defenders of Wildlife said.

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association, in contrast, said after a federal judge rejected their lawsuit Friday that they were disappointed but will examine other legal pathways.

Scientists say Colorado, with the world’s largest elk herd and plenty of wilderness, could support many hundreds of wolves, even thousands. Barnes, a former ranch manager, said that is not realistic. But he hopes the new arrivals, now wearing radio corrals so that they can be tracked, will find a generally welcoming home in the central Rockies.

“In reality, the number of wolves that can live in Colorado will be determined by how much conflict those wolves get into and how well the state responds to those conflicts,” Barnes said. “That’s the hardest thing to measure or predict.”