In The Gazette, reporter Marianne Goodland details yet another grim milestone in Colorado’s wolf experiment. A female translocated from British Columbia, tag 2506, died in southwest Colorado, bringing the statewide tally to 12 dead wolves since reintroduction began. The author is Marianne Goodland.
Goodland reports that six of the fifteen wolves imported from British Columbia in January have now died, and the overall losses include members of the Copper Creek pack and several of the original Oregon wolves. Causes range from shootings and agency removals to vehicle strikes and predator conflicts. Ranchers cite poor planning and rocky communication, while costs have already run to more than four times the state’s early estimate. The 2020 voter-approved reintroduction, driven largely by Front Range support and opposed on the Western Slope, is now struggling to find new wolf sources as multiple states and tribes balk.
The Bullet Point Brief
• Death toll ticks up. Another translocated wolf died, lifting the total to 12. Six of the fifteen B.C. imports are gone.
• Ugly mix of causes. At least four shot, some lethally removed by agencies, one hit by a car, others killed by lions or rival wolves.
• Ranchers eat the costs. Dozens of livestock killed and damages in the hundreds of thousands while the state’s tab balloons.
• Supply chain from the wild. Federal limits steer Colorado to five western states for wolves, but several sources have refused.
• Ballot box, meet reality. Front Range voters approved it; Western Slope counties rejected it. Now the practical bill has arrived.
My Bottom Line
Ballot box biology is not conservation. It is expensive theater. The program has produced dead calves and now a bunch of dead wolves, while taxpayers foot the invoices that are already multiples of the original estimate. That is not stewardship. That is a workshop on unintended consequences.
To Boulder liberals who thought slogans could manage apex predators, what is the priority now? If government is your chosen tool, it should at least work. Instead we got politics first, planning last, and ranching families stuck in the middle. Republicans and conservatives, wake up. Organize, recruit, and outwork the machine or this waste keeps rolling. Sanity returns when results matter more than press releases.
Source: The Gazette
