The reintroduction of wolves into Colorado has sparked conflict with ranchers who are experiencing livestock losses. While wildlife officials initially disputed wolf involvement in depredations, recent confirmed attacks raise concerns about the impact of this conservation effort.
Circling scavenger birds pointed Doug Bruchez to the dead cow. He found it in a creek near the headwaters of the Colorado River in the aftermath of a January blizzard, head down beneath the current. A trail of blood led back to the shores, where snow trampled in the willows suggested the violence of its last moments. One leg was badly mangled.A fifth-generation rancher, Mr. Bruchez knows how to identify predators by the marks they leave.
In the months since, dozens more livestock have been killed. And what Colorado ranchers like Mr. Bruchez have experienced has raised questions about the limits of a decades-long effort to restore the apex predator to the U.S. West – an attempt to reverse one consequence of Western settlement that relies in part on wildlife caught in British Columbia. But now, plans to send Canadian wolves south are coming under pointed attack.Doug Bruchez sees wolves as an unwelcome addition to this area.
“Certainly at the federal level, we’re real concerned,” Mr. Saul said. Under Mr. Trump, “we know we’re going to be looking at attacks on bedrock federal wildlife and environmental protections. We fought that before and we’ll fight that again.” the program from some federal influence. And Colorado is different in several key ways from other states that have brought back wolves. It is far more populous – home to nearly twice as many people as Montana and Idaho combined – and led by Democrats, who hold power in the state legislature and major cities.
Colorado wolves were extirpated in the 1940s, after a federal-government-backed cull that killed more than 24,000 of the animals in the Rocky Mountain West between 1915 and 1942. Across the U.S., wolf numbers fell to just a few hundred from two million. It was part of a broader remaking of the American landscape in which bison were also nearly hunted to extinction. The large bovines – which once numbered in the tens of millions – were historically an important part of wolf diets.A map at Mr.
Biologists on both sides of the border support the idea. In early December, however, the Colorado Conservation Alliance sent the province a letter warning it is prepared to pursue legal action if the plan goes ahead. She hires Indigenous men from the Chihuahua Mountains of Mexico to keep watch over her sheep. These men are not easily intimidated – one makes his own skunk jerky. “They know how to live off the land. But they have told me how terrified they are of the wolves,” she said. The next wolves are likely to be reintroduced near her grazing lands.Three of the 10 imported Oregon wolves have already died.
Ranchers in the Rockies keep a tally of animals they believe have been killed by wolves. The state says it will compensate ranchers for confirmed wolf kills. In the meantime, Colorado ranchers say they expect to continue the great lengths they have gone to protect their herds.
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