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Portrait of a grey wolf in the forest.

Garfield County asks CPW to mitigate wolf impacts

Board of County Commissioners requests agency halt all wolf releases going forward

PRESS RELEASE
January 21, 2025

Garfield County has sent a letter to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials and Governor Jared Polis requesting that the agency reconsider its approach to releasing gray wolves on the Western Slope. The Board of County Commissioners’ letter demands a pause in the reintroduction of wolves to ensure the program is working, that impacts to ranchers be mitigated, and that people have the right to defend their families, pets, and livestock through more than the currently allowed non-lethal methods.

The letter points out that just five of the 22 counties west of the Continental Divide voted in favor of Proposition 114, which passed in 2020, and just 13 of 64 statewide supported it. Wolves were recently released in neighboring Eagle and Pitkin counties in undisclosed locations.

The letter also asks for more accountability from CPW commissioners and agency leadership, which has been mostly absent from public discussions on the Western Slope, leaving local officials to manage public frustration, calling it a profound failure of civic leadership.

The local CPW staff who attended are highly respected members of our communities, the letter reads. They demonstrated professionalism, integrity, and dedication in a challenging situation, and they deserve our gratitude for their work. However, their efforts only highlight the stark failure and absence of leadership at higher levels.

Among its requests to CPW, the county asked the agency to halt all further releases of wolves until more remote locations on federal lands can be determined; to more clearly define chronic depredation; develop a range rider program; adequately staff so that a CPW officer can be to the scene of killed livestock within hours to determine what animal was involved; create additional strategies for managing human-wolf conflicts; and to negotiate with the Southern Ute Tribal Nation to allow releases to occur in other regions in southern Colorado.

We request that CPW be allowed more time to plan, adequately staff, and effectively implement the reintroduction plan, the letter reads. This extension would enable CPW to fulfill its mandate to continue wolf reintroduction efforts while also providing sufficient time to minimize potential negative impacts on affected communities, residents, visitors, livestock producers, and wildlife.

Difficulties finding adequate release zones have come to light, radically changing the process voters approved. The letter also questions whether such a biologically complex question should have been on the ballot in the first place.

The geographic area put to Colorado voters for wolf release was all the land west of the continental divide, the letter states. In reality — because of a 60-mile arbitrary buffer from the Utah and Wyoming borders, exclusion of the Brunot Treaty lands, a 60-mile buffer from exterior boundaries of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Reservation, no federal permission for release, and the fact Rio Blanco just cut a deal with CPW to remove them as a release county — the actual release areas are now limited to only few Western Slope counties all of which voted to deny introduction of gray wolves, except Pitkin County.

The ballot is the absolute worst way to manage wildlife resources in the state of Colorado. It’s ballot-box biology and we shouldn’t be doing that, said Commissioner Perry Will. I’m a strong wildlife advocate and this is not fair to the wolves. They’ll be in constant conflict, and we witnessed it with the release in Grand County, and it’ll happen here with the wolves that were just released. It’s not fair to the species … we’re too populated in Colorado.

He added that the impacts wolves will have on the population of ungulates is concerning and will affect hunters in the area. The letter was approved to be sent to CPW unanimously, 3-0.

No wolves were released in Garfield County, so thank you to CPW for listening to our concerns, said Commissioner Tom Jankovsky. There are no good places on state lands to release wolves in Garfield County.

I believe that the only way we can get this taken care of is to get it back on the ballot with the proper wording and get it rescinded, added Commissioner Mike Samson. We need everybody on the same page so that when it gets back on the ballot, it will be passed and we’ll be done with this, because it’s a very foolish endeavor that will cost the state of Colorado millions and millions of dollars.