Industry News
On Monday, December 18, 2023, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (‘CPW’) released five gray wolves onto public land in Grand County. The release was part of Proposition 114 (State Statute 33-2-105.8) which instructs the CPW Commission to reintroduce gray wolves to Colorado by December 31, 2023. The State Statute came into effect following a public vote in Colorado in 2020, which voted in favor of the wolf reintroduction to Colorado.
While the reintroduction of wolves may seem controversial, scientists believe that the gray wolves will restore the Colorado ecosystem. Wolves were completely removed from Colorado in the 1930s-1940s. In the 80-90 years since then, the ecosystem has changed dramatically, as game populations damaged and changed much of the vegetation by destroying delicate vegetation along streams and valleys. This eroded the ecosystems of other species, from beavers to songbirds, rabbits, coyotes, and hawks. Scientists believe that the reintroduction will cause a ‘trophic cascade’. A trophic cascade is when a change at the top of the food chain impacts every layer in the food chain down to the bottom.
The gray wolves released in Colorado were captured in Oregon where CPW veterinarians and biologists evaluated them to determine if they were fit for relocation to Colorado. Criteria for release included the age, sex, health, and body condition of each animal. Each gray wolf was weighed and measured. Staff collected genetic material – tissue and blood samples – before fitting each with a GPS satellite collar for tracking upon release by CPW staff. Then, the wolves were given vaccines, and were placed in crates and flown to Colorado for release back into the wild.
2023-12-17 | Oregon Wolf Captures from Colorado Parks & Wildlife on Vimeo.
Meet Colorado’s new wolves:
- 2302-OR: Juvenile female, black color, 68 lbs., Five Points Pack
- 2303-OR: Juvenile male, gray color, 76 lbs. Five Points Pack
- 2304-OR: Juvenile female, gray color, 76 lbs., Noregaard Pack
- 2305-OR: Juvenile male, black color, 93 lbs., Noregaard Pack
- 2307-OR: Adult male, gray color, 108 lbs., Wenaha Pack
CPW will repeat the process until at least 10 – 15 wolves have been reintroduced in Colorado by mid-March 2024. As outlined in the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan, CPW hopes to release 30 to 50 wolves over the next 3 – 5 years using wolves captured from nearby northern Rockies states from several different packs by trapping and darting them in the winter. The plan is to recover and maintain a viable, self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado while balancing the need to manage interactions between wolves, people, and livestock.
“Today, history was made in Colorado. For the first time since the 1940s, the howl of wolves will officially return to western Colorado. The return of wolves fulfills the will of voters who, in 2020, passed an initiative requiring the reintroduction of wolves starting by Dec. 31, 2023. What followed were three years of comprehensive listening and work by Colorado Parks and Wildlife to draft a plan to restore and manage wolves that included public meetings in every corner of the state and was inclusive of all points of view and weighed the needs of a wide range of communities with a deep interest in the thoughtful outcome of this effort. I am proud of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff for their hard work to make this happen. The shared efforts to reintroduce wolves are just getting started and wolves will rejoin a diverse ecosystem of Colorado wildlife.”
— Jared Polis, Colorado Governor
Gray wolves are listed both state and federally as an endangered species in Colorado by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (‘USFWS’). USFWS has designated the Colorado wolf population as Experimental under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. This provides management flexibility that would otherwise be prohibited. CPW’s reintroduction program builds on work started by the USFWS in 1995 when that federal agency began restoring gray wolves in the Western U.S., starting with an experimental population released in Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Wolf reintroduction efforts eventually spread to Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Wolves have been re-introduced across the world with great success. In Switzerland, wolves were reintroduced more than 10 years ago. There were less than 100 wolves as recently as 2019, but by 2023 numbers ballooned to more than 300 wolves across 32 different packs. Attacks on livestock, such as sheep and cattle, increased by more than five-fold in Switzerland and farmers called for changes in laws to allow for the pre-emptive shooting of wolves. An improvement in herd protection through the use of special cattle dogs has resulted in a decrease in attacks on livestock by 71% this year.
Farmers in Colorado are concerned about the effects of the wolf reintroduction on the well-being of their livestock. In February this year, 51 ranchers around Gunnison signed a letter expressing concerns with CPW’s reintroduction plan, and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and The Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association tried to stop or delay the reintroduction by means of a lawsuit. On Friday, December 15, 2023, federal Judge Regina Rodriguez denied the request from Colorado’s cattle industry to delay the release of the gray wolves. While the lawsuit will continue, the judge’s ruling allowed CPW to proceed with the release on Monday. The lawsuit alleges that USFWS failed to adequately review the potential impacts of Colorado’s plan to release up to 50 wolves in Colorado over the next several years.
