Colorado Wolf Initiative Officially Makes Ballot! Follow-up to our post of 12/22/19.

Wolves One Step Closer to Colorado

After decades of effort, various conservation groups in Colorado are in for a pay-off as a ballot initiative providing for the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado has recently qualified for a statewide vote.  

According to AP reporting, the Colorado Secretary of State's office said Monday that backers of the initiative have gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.  

AP also reports that The Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, which is campaigning for the initiative, says "voters have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether to introduce the wolf, whereas efforts in other states are directed by federal wildlife officials."  

This isn't quite true --reintroduction in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming was certainly federally guided, but reintroduction, or more accurately, recolonization in Washington, Oregon and California has almost exclusively been managed at the state level, albeit, not under the aegis of  voter-approved ballot initiatives.  

The initiative is opposed by the usual assortment of ranching and resource extraction interests who argue that it would threaten livestock as well as wild ungulate populations that generate revenue through hunting.  The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission also opposes the initiative, which on its face seems damning, but a little digging quickly reveals that at least six of said commission's 11 members must represent hunting and ranching interests.  

Here is the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission's official page explaining how, among other things, the commission's membership is to be constituted.  

Here is a link to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission's resolution regarding the initiative.  

No surprises there.  

The last wolves in Colorado were killed off by the federal government in the 1940s.  It was the culmination of a long-term campaign whereby the federal government basically subsidized ranching interests by using taxpayer money to run programs meant to eradicate wolves and other large predators (and coyotes, but with almost zero success, for reasons that we'll get into in a future post) from the lower 48 US states.

The campaign was, of course, ill-advised, and as early as the 1930s was widely opposed by all credible wildlife biologists who studied the western US.  Nonetheless, through a combination of ignorance and pocketbook considerations, the continuing absence of wolves and other large predators from vast swathes of North America continues to be seriously represented as a public good by those who think they stand to lose were the continent's fauna to shift back to a trophic balance more nearly resembling that which existed prior to European colonization.  

As we've argued here before, it's basically a farce.  When it comes to the rural west, the very interests that most loudly trumpet the benefits of self-sufficiency and personal accountability while also decrying the federal government, are exactly the same interests that never would have existed in the first place were it not for the federal government bending over backwards to make their lives as easy as possible whether it be through expedited infrastructure related to resource-extraction, or anti-predator wildlife policies meant to benefit ranching on the taxpayer's tab.  

NWLobos has a lot more to say.  

Please do check back with us.  

####