Gov. Polis Releases Wolves in Covert Ceremony

One might think Colorado Governor Jared Polis would scale back his anti-agriculture campaign – at least publicly – after his tone-deaf proclamation of Meat-Out Day on the first day of spring in 2021. But despite that PR fiasco, the governor has again thumbed his nose at Colorado ranchers with last week’s covert wolf reintroduction.

Colorado voters approved the reintroduction of gray wolves via a ballot measure in 2020, so the release of five wolves on Dec. 18 into the wilderness of Grand County was legal. But if it was legal, why was it done secretly? And that’s not the only question Colorado ranchers are demanding the governor answer.

To date, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials have released 10 gray wolves – four males and six females – at two locations on state-owned land in Grand and Summit counties. Wolves were eradicated from Colorado in the 1940s, and the controversial ballot measure (Proposition 114) passed with a slim 51% to 49% margin.

The state’s ranchers campaigned against the ballot measure, and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Gunnison County Stockgrower’s Association filed a last-ditch lawsuit last month in federal court against Colorado Parks and Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. The ranchers argued the reintroduction of wolves should be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act and they asked the federal court to block wolf releases until the complaint is reviewed. That request was denied.

That decision paved the way for the first reintroduction of the wolves, and the governor’s unusual photo opportunity. Colorado Public Radio’s Sam Brasch was one of just three reporters selected to be onsite when the first five wolves were set free.

Brasch told Aspen Public Radio’s Elanor Bennett he received the mystery invite on Monday morning of last week. The reporters met Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials at a rest stop and were then driven to the release site.

“The agency had flown five wolves from Oregon earlier that morning. And when we got there, each one was in these dark metal crates in the backs of pickup trucks,” Brasch said. “They were then driven to a small clearing where there were about 45 invited guests who wanted to watch the releases — that included CPW officers, Governor Polis, his husband, and top wolf advocates from around the state. Then we watched the governor help open each crate. Three of the wolves bolted up over a snow-covered road into the woods immediately. You know, two others took their time before just kind of sauntering out of their crates and running into the woods.”

Notably missing, according to Brasch’s description of the guests, were any representatives from Colorado’s ranching community, which might have included some top wolf opponents. Yet that omission is likely because the wolves released already had rap sheets as members of packs with known livestock kills in Oregon. Wowza!

You read that right. The wolves released in Colorado come from packs that have already killed livestock. Could CPW have chosen wolves for relocation that hadn’t already appeared on a naughty wolf list? Maybe. Except Wyoming, Idaho and Montana refused to allow Colorado to adopt any of their wolves.

Some have viewed that refusal as a political wedge issue as Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are Red states and Colorado a Blue state. But Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon’s comments to the Wyoming State Daily earlier this year sound like the decision was made for more practical reasons.

“Our border with Colorado is an unsuitable area for wolves, and that would mean more human conflicts. Resolution of conflicts is almost always deadly to wolves,” Gordon said.

In any case, Colorado found some adoptable wolves in Blue state Oregon.

Reporting for The Fence Post last week, Rachel Gabel reviewed the rap sheets of the relocated wolves. Two of the wolves, a juvenile male and a juvenile female, come from Five Points Pack. Gabel noted that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Livestock Depredations Investigations found “Five Points Pack wolves injured one calf and killed another in separate depredations in July of 2023; killed a cow on Dec. 5, 2022; and injured a 900-pound yearling heifer on July 17, 2022.”

USDA killed four wolves from that pack by August 4, 2023.

(Gabel’s reporting on the controversial wolf reintroduction has drawn the ire of the state’s official first gentleman, Marlon Reis, who attacked Gabel on Facebook. His comments did not sit well with the editors at The Gazette.)

The other three wolves released into Colorado under Governor Polis’ supervision, also come from packs with confirmed livestock kills. Gabel reported another juvenile male and female came from the Noregaard Pack which was involved in the killing of a calf on June 15. The fifth wolf, an adult male, came from the Wenaha Pack involved in the killing of a 7-mont-old calf on Sept. 18, and a cow on Oct. 25.

But that’s just the first five wolves! The second batch of five wolves had a similar record of misbehavior. Cowboy State Daily columnist Cat Urbigkit accurately describes why Colorado ranchers are so angry.

“Colorado released a total of 10 wolves – all but one from confirmed cattle-killing packs, according to information from Oregon wolf depredation records. What on earth could be wrong with that?

“Over the last two years the message to Colorado livestock producers has been to do all they can to reduce the risk of livestock depredation, and producers have been stepping up to do that. The words ‘conflict minimization’ are repeated 176 times in Colorado’s wolf plan. So, when the same agency then takes an action that appears to increase the risk of conflict to livestock producers, what message does that relay?”

The answer, as Urbigkit writes, is that “Colorado put its own livestock producers into a higher risk situation than it needed. Bringing in wolves from packs that are already known as livestock killers raises the risk for repeat performance.”

Interestingly, Urbigkit’s opinion is shared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Technical Working Group’s (TWG) final recommendations to the agency: “No wolf should be translocated that has a known history of chronic depredation, and sourcing from geographic areas with chronic depredation events should not occur.”

That important tidbit, however, was missing from news releases documenting the wolf release, as was any apparent wolf pardon granted during Governor Polis’ photo opportunity.

And that’s why the covert wolf release was another in a long string of botched PR episodes from Colorado’s current governor.