Cry for wolves
Effort to reintroduce the animal to Colorado facing many obstacles
By Gary Gerhardt - Denver/Rocky Mountain News
Wolves won't be returning to Colorado anytime soon if it's up the state
Division of Wildlife, said Russell George, the agency's director.
"There are two legal obstacles at present that restrict us from taking part in
any wolf reintroduction in Colorado," George said last week at a wolf
symposium
in Denver that was sponsored by the Colorado Wildlife Federation.
"One is the state Wildlife Commission passed a resolution that they wouldn't
reintroduce wolves or grizzlies in the state.
"The other is a bill passed last year that the General Assembly would have the
final say before any such reintroduction could take place."
In addition, there are about 80 species in Colorado listed as "threatened,"
"endangered" or "special concern." And those species are in need of attention,
George said.
"We don't have the resources ... to put into a wolf-reintroduction effort," he
said.
Mike Phillips, chairman of the Southern Rockies Wolf Restoration Project, said
there are 25 million acres of public land in southern Wyoming, Utah, Colorado
and northern New Mexico that studies say could support up to 2,000 wolves.
Phillips called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare an
Environmental Impact Statement, saying it is inevitable that wolves will be
reintroduced there.
Tom Compton, chairman of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, said cattlemen,
farmers and woolgrowers oppose reintroduction, fearing the wolves will prey on
livestock.
Wolves aren't in danger of extinction anywhere in the world, Compton said, and
that they aren't a necessary component for an ecosystem to function.
He also said he was concerned about potential human-wolf conflicts in a state
where so much development is taking place.
"I do believe they would fulfill everyone's aesthetic and spiritual desires,"
he said.
"But before we'd agree to it, we'd want a clear and unmistakable understanding
that the public knows the implications, and I would call for the use of public
funds to pay for livestock killed by wolves to make that point."
He said if public demand forced ranchers to accept reintroduction of wolves,
ranchers would want five concessions:
* A written, mutually agreeable policy.
* Compensation for livestock loses.
* A policy saying wolves that kill livestock would be destroyed.
* A "two-strikes" policy for wolves that stalk livestock in which they
would be
moved for a first offense and destroyed for a second.
* Radio collars on wolves for three years so the ranching community could be
informed of their movements.
Ed Bangs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery team leader, said
wolves
and wolf management have more to do with people and symbols than reality.
"They represent human values," he said. "Wolves are aesthetically viable."
He said the keys to wolf reintroduction are: the impact on livestock; the
effect on big game animals; the cost of reintroducing the animals; and
land-use
restrictions.
"While in Montana we only had 10 cattle and 20 sheep a year taken by wolves,
for which the Defenders of Wildlife pay compensation, it is extremely
difficult
to confirm the animals were killed by wolves, and it comes down to about one
out of five as provable."
Bangs acknowledged that predators affect big game animals. Not significantly
though, he said, otherwise prey species such as deer and elk would be extinct.
However, the federal government likely will have no role in bringing wolves
back to Colorado because soon the Fish and Wildlife Service will no longer
consider the predators as endangered here, Bangs said.
"We have been successful in returning the wolves to Yellowstone, Idaho and
Montana. Colorado is part of the Northern Rockies effort, which means when we
delist wolves in that area, they will be delisted in Colorado as well,
although
there isn't a single wolf here," Bangs said.
"If Colorado wants them, it will have to be up to the state to bring them
back."
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0%2C1299%2CDRMN_21_44152%2C

00.html

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/lett0223.htm

Return of the wolf

Charlie Meyers' Feb. 20 column ( "Will sportsmen pay
for return of
the wolf?'') played to a number of myths and alarmist
fears
regarding wolf reintroduction.

First of all, hunters and fisherman will not be paying
for livestock
lost to wolves. The group Defenders of Wildlife has a
well-established fund which compensates ranchers for
the few
livestock that are actually lost to wolves in
reintroduction areas;
Defenders and others stand ready to extend this
program to the
Southern Rockies. Thus, the Department of Wildlife and
thereby
sportsmen will bear no financial burden for any
wolf-related losses,
as Meyers claims.

Second, Meyers makes every possible reference to fairy
tale
perceptions of wolves. While I am sure that we were
all once
entertained by these same fairy tales, the science of
wildlife
biology - not bedtime story scare tactics - should be the
determining factor in any wolf reintroduction efforts.
Wolves do not
"feast on sheep and grandmothers" as Meyers so tauntingly
asserts. Nor will there be "a pack living in our
neighborhood."
Meyers' incendiary tone and disregard for facts is
indeed cause for
alarm; the possible return of the wolf is not.

JILL DAHLKE Boulder

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/edits0225b.htm

editorial

Wary about wolf plan

Feb. 25, 2001 - Few wildlife issues get folks more
riled up than talk of bringing wild wolves back to Colorado. But at a conference in Denver last weekend, supporters and opponents of the idea politely defined the real issues and sticking points - thus advancing
the debate far beyond the emotional realm where it has
stalled for many years.

Gray wolves thrive in Minnesota and a few other parts
of the northern continental United States. But in the central and southern Rockies, they exist only where humans have actively restored them.

In the late 1980s, a few gray wolves were brought to
Yellowstone National Park as an experimental population. Despite numerous human legal and political battles, the animals have done well, and in fact expanded their range. A variety of gray wolf,
known as the Mexican wolf, also has been brought to parts of New Mexico and Arizona.

But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service insists it
doesn't plan to reintroduce wolves in Colorado because the Endangered Species Act doesn't require that a species be restored to all or even most of its previous range.

To many environmentalists that decision leaves the job
half done. Because wolves are naturally part of the state's ecosystems, they say, Colorado's biological diversity has been incomplete since the animals were hunted into oblivion here nearly 60 years ago. Led by
the Boulder-based Sinapu, environmentalists are push
ing to make the Fish and Wildlife Service change its mind.

But the obstacles aren't solely at the federal level.

Colorado law (which may not pass U.S. constitutional
muster) claims the state legislature, not the federal
government, should decide what endangered species can be restored here. The legislature almost always kowtows to rural interests historically opposed to predator reintroduction - it even balked at
bringing back the lynx, which doesn't hunt livestock.

To even hope that wolves someday will be reintroduced to Colorado, advocates thus must:

- Find private sources to fund the program, since
neither the feds nor the cash-strapped Colorado Division of Wildlife are apt to pay for it.

- Convince state lawmakers that wolves don't threaten
people (there's never been a documented wolf attack on humans in the United States) and that impacts on ranchers will be minimal. Near Yellowstone, losses to wolves average just 19 cattle and 68 sheep per year. By contrast, area losses to weather, disease, etc. run
about 8,300 cattle and 13,000 sheep a year.

- Develop and fund a private program to compensate
ranchers who do lose livestock to wolves.

The bottom line: Wolves won't return to Colorado until
the people of this state tell their elected leaders they want them here - and are prepared to address opponents' legitimate worries.