Colorado initiative would OK reintroducing the gray wolf

Here's the article in full, as always I urge everyone to read it.  The gist is that wildlife activists in Colorado have introduced a ballot initiative that would authorize the reintroduction of wolves into the state.

If this strikes anyone as odd, or at least mildly puzzling given that wolves have proven themselves perfectly capable of self-reintroduction in states like Washington, Oregon and, most recently, California, fear not, for you are in good company.  

One obvious question here is how wolves have recolonized Washington, Oregon and far-northern California from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, while seemingly somehow shunning Utah and Colorado.  The answer is, of-course, related to geography and climate as well as human-made obstacles.  While there are vast swathes of both Utah and Colorado that are more than capable of supporting healthy wolf populations, they are cut off from the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest by a combination of man-made and natural obstacles that together have thus far stymied the efforts of all but a few wandering wolves, none of whom have established a pack.

In any case, this is the first time that wolf-reintroduction will be voted on by the citizens of a state and it has attracted a great deal of money and controversy as well as hard feelings and strong words on all sides.  As anyone might have predicted, and as we have so often belabored on this blog, the divide is once again primarily rural vs urban, conservative vs liberal; a sort of microcosm of the greater cultural divide that is currently tearing the country apart.