Colorado made a giant leap forward in restoring wolves when voters there endorsed reintroducing wild wolves to their former habitats, much like they were in Yellowstone 28 years ago.
The state has created a draft management plan that will inform how Colorado Parks & Wildlife guides their recovery. Unfortunately, this plan does far too little to keep wolves safe.
The state’s plan has a number of unacceptable flaws that must be corrected in order to restore gray wolves successfully. Its delisting threshold of 150 wolves is far too low to remove the species from the state endangered or threatened list and will not allow the wolf to sustain itself. The plan must also respect the intent of voters and the language of Proposition 114 and remove any mention of a Phase 4 or wolf hunting in the draft plan.
As former Colorado Senator Mark Udall wrote in his Denver Post OpEd, “Wolves should never be killed on public lands, and officials should not be granted the power to kill wolves to ‘avoid conflict with human activities,’ which can include all sorts of things.”
Montana and Idaho are serving as horrific examples of failure to plan to protect wolves into the future. We can prevent that from happening in Colorado by pressing Colorado Parks & Wildlife to make the state safe today.
The return of gray wolves to Colorado will be a huge milestone in recovering this species nationally. But that success won’t happen without change. Our Southern Rockies Representative works in Denver and around the state to organize strong support for gray wolves now and into the future. Please make a tax-deductible gift to support that work to allow gray wolves to safely return to Colorado free from the threat of hunting and trapping.
2 comments on “Make Colorado Safe for Wolves”
Wolves are cornerstone predators. For a healthy environment we need wolves. Ad for healthy wolves we need the EPA.
Wolves are cornerstone predators. For a healthy environment we need wolves. And for healthy wolves we need the EPA.