Colorado wolf map shows animals traveling further than ever before
Colorado’s reintroduced wolves have started traveling to new areas of the state, a tracking map shows.
What To Know
A female gray wolf traveled in watersheds—alongside natural water sources such as rivers and streams—in Chaffee, Park and Fremont counties in January, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s monthly tracking map, released on Wednesday.
This is further southeast than any of the state’s collared wolves have ventured, The Denver Post reported. All other wolves seemingly remained in and around Summit, Grand, Jackson, Routt and Garfield counties.
CPW
Why It Matters
Colorado voters passed a ballot initiative in 2020 that called for reintroducing gray wolves into the Centennial State.
However, after some wolves were moved to the state from Oregon as part of the reintroduction program, a spate of attacks on livestock prompted farmers and others to criticize the program and demand its end.
15 Canadian Wolves Released in Colorado
The most recent map shows where wolves traveled between December 22 and January 21. It is the first to include the movements of 15 wolves captured in Canada and released in Pitkin and Eagle counties earlier this month. These wolves traveled west of Aspen and north of Eagle.
When this release was announced almost two weeks ago, it caused some controversy, with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) facing criticism from some Republicans.
Colorado U.S. Representatives Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank, Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd released a joint statement condemning the CPW operation for importing “foreign wolves” into the state.
They demanded that the Department of the Interior intervene and that the administration of President Donald Trump “take immediate action by stopping further importation of these foreign predators into the United States.”
“After years of slighting or outright ignoring Colorado farmers and ranchers with politically appointed anti-agricultural activists and ‘meat-free days,’ bureaucrats in Colorado have rushed through the importation of Canadian gray wolves and have set them loose in our state despite numerous protests and questions about the legality of this dysfunctional and chaotic approach,” Boebert, Crank, Evans and Hurd said in the statement.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump administration via email for comment.
What People Are Saying
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, in a press release: “As wolves begin to move to new areas of the state, CPW has prepared with expanded and improved capabilities for producers through the Conflict Minimization program that will allow for faster response to conflicts and higher likelihood of effective non-lethal deployment. This work results in improved strategies for altering depredation behavior early and reducing the potential for repeated depredations.”
The CPW has also published a Wolf-Livestock Conflict Minimization Program Guide, which is supposed to help farmers and other types of livestock producers to use certain tools and methods “to reduce the likelihood of wolf-livestock conflicts.”
Colorado Representative Boebert, in a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland: “Colorado’s notion that wolves not released directly onto federal property can evade federal jurisdiction is unprecedented. Wolves obviously do not disappear when they cross the invisible boundaries between state and federal lands…I call upon your duty as Secretary of the Interior to stop Colorado’s importation of foreign gray wolves to federal lands…”
What Happens Next
The impact of the reintroduction of gray wolves into Colorado is being closely monitored and is yet to be fully seen. It is unclear whether Trump will heed the calls of Colorado Republicans asking him to get involved.
