Following years of intense meetings, public comment and outreach, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission officially approved the final Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan this afternoon. Details:
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Following years of intense meetings, public comment and outreach, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission officially approved the final Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan on Wednesday afternoon.
“Congratulations to this entire group," CPW Commission Chair Carrie Besnette Hauser said immediately after the vote."It’s sort of a little emotional. This is a big deal. Thank you for the compromise. Thank you for the dialogue. Thank you for the healthy debate in this day and age when we just don’t see it happening.”
"And it is a plan that has been guided by a Stakeholder Advisory group, the Technical Working Group, and thousands of individuals and organizations that have weighed in on the public input process," she said.Eric Odell, species conservation program manager with CPW, has been at almost every wolf-related meeting the CPW Commission has held since 2020. After summarizing the countless hours of work that had gone into the creation of this plan, he commented on what's ahead.
Shall there be a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes concerning the restoration of gray wolves through their reintroduction on designated lands in Colorado located west of the Continental Divide, and, in connection therewith, requiring the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, after holding statewide hearings and using scientific data, to implement a plan to restore and manage gray wolves; prohibiting the commission from imposing any land, water, or resource use restrictions on private...
Meanwhile, in northwestern Colorado, gray wolves were already starting to trickle into the state. In July 2019, CPW said it was investigating a gray wolf sighting in Jackson County. The wolf was wearing a tracking collar. They confirmed it was from a pack in Wyoming. About six months later, in February 2020, officials confirmed the first documentation of a wolf pack in Colorado in more than 70 years.
The document acknowledges both the negative and positive impacts of having wolves on Colorado's landscape. Attacks by wolves on humans are"exceedingly rare," the document reads, and there are no documented accounts of a person killed by a wolf in North America between 1900 and 2000. The animals generally fear people.
The plan reads that"it is desirable" to source these wolves from the northern Rockies, like Idaho, Montana or Wyoming. They may also come from Oregon or Washington. One of the concerns raised during the public comment period involved questions about governors of those states refusing to donate wolves to Colorado.They will then be released, as state statute requires, west of the Continental Divide.
If this point is reached, the CPW will conduct a population viability analysis to assess extinction probability using Colorado-specific demographic parameters, the plan reads.This section of the plan is purposefully general because it is forecasting so far in the long-term.CPW acknowledged in the plan that at some point in the future, wolf management may need to be considered in a way that is not outlined in the plan simply because the information is not yet available.
The 10 rule is not yet in effect for Colorado wolves. This means that management tools — which may include aversive conditioning and lethal take to protect people and livestock, especially following reintroduction — are limited, as gray wolves are still listed as an endangered species in Colorado.During Wednesday's meeting, many members of the public, as well as elected officials, said they feel this rule needs to be adopted before Colorado reintroduces any wolves to the land.
The plan describes conditions in which lethal take of wolves, if authorized, would be used. CPW, and possible USFWS as well, would look at several aspects of the state's wolf packs, such as population growth and pack dynamics and distribution to determine if lethal control is required. Physical evidence should be at-hand, the document reads. This can include dead or injured livestock or working dogs.
CPW will provide educational materials to livestock owners on ways to avoid wolf-livestock interactions, which includes managing any carcasses on the property, herd composition and more. Aside from collars, CPW will also monitor wolves via winter track counts, aerial surveys, hair samplings, scat collections, howling surveys, trail cameras and visual observations from both experts and the general public.
"CPW extensively monitors all ungulate populations throughout the state," the final plan reads."The reintroduction of wolves to the state will not cause any of these efforts to diminish. In fact, CPW has already invested in expanded, pre-wolf reintroduction ungulate monitoring, which is only likely to expand into additional areas as wolf populations grow and disperse across the state.
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