Colorado wolf reintroduction faces challenges with deaths and sourcing.

5 hours ago7 min read2 comments

On a crisp morning two years ago, a handful of state officials stood amidst the rugged peaks of northwestern Colorado, faces to the wind before a line of large metal crates. With a small, watchful crowd bearing witness, they swung the doors open.One by one, gray wolves—arguably the nation's most contentious endangered species—emerged, their paws touching Colorado soil for the first time in generations. This was a monumental moment for conservation, the culmination of a hard-fought battle to mend a broken ecosystem.While gray wolves once roamed freely across much of the Lower 48, a systematic, government-backed extermination campaign throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had wiped them out; by the 1940s, Colorado's resident wolves were gone. Then, in the fall of 2020, Colorado voters did something unprecedented, passing a ballot measure to deliberately bring them back.This was never merely about reintroducing a charismatic animal to admire from afar; it was a profound attempt to restore ecological balance, to reintroduce an apex predator whose presence regulates deer and elk populations, curbs the spread of disease, and even reduces costly vehicle collisions, thereby healing the biodiversity we have so carelessly eroded. In the winter of 2023, state officials released ten gray wolves, translocated from Oregon, onto public land.This past January, they introduced another fifteen from Canada. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), the agency steering this ambitious program, plans to release thirty to fifty wolves over three to five years to establish a self-sustaining, breeding population.'Today, history was made in Colorado,' Governor Jared Polis declared following that initial release. 'For the first time since the 1940s, the howl of wolves will officially return to western Colorado.' Yet, fast forward to the present, and the program's surface appears deeply troubled. Ten of the transplanted wolves are already dead, as is one of their wild-born pups.The state is now struggling to secure new animals for the next phase of reintroduction, and the program's costs have ballooned millions of dollars beyond initial projections. The critical takeaway, however, is not that the reintroduction was a misguided endeavor.Rather, these formidable challenges reveal the extraordinary difficulty of restoring a top predator to a landscape utterly dominated by human interests, a truth that resonates from the American West to rewilding projects globally, especially when the animal in question has been culturally vilified for centuries. The mortality data paints a stark picture of the wolves' harsh new reality.One harsh biological truth is that wolves face high natural mortality rates from disease, intra-species conflict over territory, and other predators; indeed, one of Colorado's reintroduced wolves was killed by another wolf, while two likely fell to mountain lions. Human alterations to the landscape compound these natural dangers exponentially.One male wolf was found dead in May, likely the victim of a vehicle strike. Another died after stepping into a coyote foothold trap.In a bitter irony, two other wolves were killed by officials themselves. CPW personnel shot and killed one wolf—the offspring of a released individual—and the U.S. Department of Agriculture killed another that had wandered into Wyoming, both actions taken after the animals were linked to livestock attacks.This obscure USDA division, Wildlife Services, kills hundreds of thousands of wild animals annually that it deems threats to human industry, a practice that highlights the inherent conflict between conservation goals and agricultural economies. Yet another wolf was legally killed after it trekked into Wyoming, a state with permissive wolf-hunting regulations.CPW has made commendable efforts to mitigate these conflicts, such as hiring 'range riders' to patrol and protect livestock herds. But these solutions are imperfect on a landscape blanketed by ranchland; wolves continue to prey on sheep and cattle.This age-old conflict—or often, the potent perception of it—has similarly complicated attempts to reintroduce other predators, from jaguars in Arizona to grizzly bears in Washington. 'This was not ever going to be easy,' reflects Joanna Lambert, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.Compounding the tragedy of these deaths is a logistical crisis: Colorado is running out of wolves to reintroduce. The state planned to release another ten to fifteen animals early next year, initially sourcing them from Canada.But in October, the Trump administration informed CPW that a federal regulation governing the state's gray wolf population does not explicitly permit importing wolves from Canada, a interpretation hotly contested by environmental legal groups. So Colorado turned to Washington state.That hope, too, was dashed when Washington wildlife officials voted against exporting any of their wolves. Despite a population of more than 200 gray wolves, a recent count showed a decline, making officials hesitant to support a plan that could further reduce their numbers, especially given the high mortality the animals face in Colorado.Other states with robust wolf populations, like Montana and Wyoming, have previously refused to provide animals, leaving Colorado scrambling for alternative sources as it prepares for its winter release schedule. Despite these sobering setbacks, there are fragile signs of hope, glimmers of ecological success.Over the summer, CPW shared trail camera footage of three wolf puppies, all clumsy paws and playful nips, a heartening sight. The agency now confirms four litters in Colorado, a clear signal that the predators are settling in, establishing territories, and beginning to carve out a new home.'This reproduction is really key,' Eric Odell, CPW's wolf conservation program manager, emphasized in a July meeting. 'Despite some things that you may hear, not all aspects of wolf management have been a failure.We're working towards success. ' Ultimately, as Lambert notes, determining the program's true success is a long game, one that will unfold over years, even decades. The path of rewilding is never a straight line; it is a complex, often painful negotiation between ecological ambition and human reality, a testament to the immense challenge of stitching a torn wilderness back together, one wolf at a time.

#featured

#wolf reintroduction

#Colorado

#conservation

#endangered species

#ecosystem restoration

#human-wildlife conflict

#wildlife management

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