Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department announces credible evidence of wolves
So here's the gist: Wildlife officials in Colorado revealed Wednesday that there's solid evidence of wolf presence in the northwest corner of the state as indicated by a series of eyewitness accounts, including a video taken by hunters, as well as an elk carcass that appears to be surrounded by large canine footprints.
Elk carcass, found by locals.
“We have no doubt that they are here, and the most recent sighting of what appears to be wolves traveling together in what can be best described as a pack is further evidence of the presence of wolves in Colorado,” department regional manager J.T. Romatzke said in a statement reported by the AP.
This is big if true --and there's no reason to think that it's not-- because it comes, as NWLobos has recently reported, directly on the heels of a Colorado ballot initiative seeking voter approval for the reintroduction of wolves into the state. Since wolves are federally protected, should wild wolves recolonize Colorado on their own, they would be federally protected which would largely obviate the need for a state ballot initiative. Of course, especially now that the initiative has qualified for the November ballot, it will be voted on regardless.
A photograph of a suspected wolf footprint. (Photo courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife)
As for what the larger implications are for the future of wolves in Colorado, if other states are anything to go by, the new pack will thrive, spread, and eventually form a stable population. This will of course be stridently opposed by ranching and resource-extraction interests who will portray the coming of wolves to Colorado as something near an existential threat, but who will, over time, begrudgingly adjust and learn to live with them. Many will, as has happened in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, eventually come around to admitting that far from posing an existential threat, wolves are actually a net benefit to Colorado's ecology and the various fish and game populations it supports.
As for what the larger implications are for the future of wolves in Colorado, if other states are anything to go by, the new pack will thrive, spread, and eventually form a stable population. This will of course be stridently opposed by ranching and resource-extraction interests who will portray the coming of wolves to Colorado as something near an existential threat, but who will, over time, begrudgingly adjust and learn to live with them. Many will, as has happened in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, eventually come around to admitting that far from posing an existential threat, wolves are actually a net benefit to Colorado's ecology and the various fish and game populations it supports.
A Final Note;
NWLobos has wrestled in the past with the question of how it's possible for wolves to have made it all the way from Yellowstone to California, but not to the much closer Utah and Colorado. Some preliminary internet research failed to unearth anything like a compelling and obvious explanation. One imagines that there must be biologists capable of accounting for this seeming anomaly in straightforward terms, but if so, their knowledge was not readily available. Accordingly NWLobos admittedly took the easy way out and went with the vague explanation that said recolinization had not happened due to a combination of man-made and natural barriers that, together, had thus far proved insurmountable to wolves.
We did so while noting that individual wolves are known to have made it into Colorado (and Utah), while erroneously imagining that they could not easily do so with mates capable of creating viable packs based on procreation.
Of course this was an absurd proposition, and once again, in recolonizing Colorado on their own, wolves make a mockery of our notions.
We did so while noting that individual wolves are known to have made it into Colorado (and Utah), while erroneously imagining that they could not easily do so with mates capable of creating viable packs based on procreation.
Of course this was an absurd proposition, and once again, in recolonizing Colorado on their own, wolves make a mockery of our notions.
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