Tell the FWS: Colorado’s wolves are essential
It’s official: Wolves are coming back to Colorado.
Wolves deserve a safe return to Colorado.
Coloradans voted in favor of reintroducing wolves to the Rocky Mountain State, and the reintroduction program is slated to begin later this year.1
But reintroducing wolves to Colorado doesn’t make any sense if it might be legal to hunt and trap them. Right now, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is collecting comments from the public on how the Colorado population of wolves should be managed. It’s our job to speak out and ensure that any wolf released in Colorado is able to make a safe home there.
Now is our chance to make sure Colorado stays safe for wolves.
The rules laid down this year won’t just impact the wolves that are deliberately reintroduced to Colorado habitat. The regulations will cover the entire state, which means the lives of any wolves who naturally disperse into Colorado will also hang in the balance.2
Colorado is a pretty safe place to be a wolf — for the moment. But under the new rules, Colorado won’t be as much of a safe haven anymore. The FWS will now be able to authorize landowners and ranchers to shoot wolves on sight under certain conditions.
And the agency itself will have the authority to kill wolves in favor of livestock. But research shows that killing wolves who attack livestock backfires, leading to more dead sheep and cattle the following year instead of less.3,4
Shooting endangered wolves is simply not the solution. Protect Colorado’s wolves by adding your name today.
Take action to tell the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect Colorado’s wolves.
The return of wolves to Colorado is a joyful thing. We need to cherish these irreplaceable animals, not make their ancestral habitat even more dangerous for them.
Gray wolves roamed from coast to coast in the United States before they were hunted to near-extinction, including in the state of Colorado.5 They’re a keystone species that’s critical to maintaining the natural balance of the places they call home — a balance that has been disturbed for decades, while wolves have been missing from the majority of their historic range.
The fact is, wolves belong in Colorado. They can make the Rocky Mountain State a wilder and healthier ecosystem. They deserve to thrive — but they need our protection.
- Conrad Swanson, “Colorado to release up to 50 wolves on the Western Slope, draft plan says,” The Denver Post, December 9, 2022.
- “Endangered and Threatened Species: Establishment of a Nonessential Experimental Population of the Gray Wolf in Colorado,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, last accessed March 13, 2023.
- “Endangered and Threatened Species: Establishment of a Nonessential Experimental Population of the Gray Wolf in Colorado,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, last accessed March 13, 2023.
- Eric Sorensen, “Research finds lethal wolf control backfires on livestock,” WSU Insider, December 3, 2014.
- “Gray Wolf,” Yellowstone National Park, last accessed March 13, 2023.