Colorado's New Family of Wild Wolves Must be Celebrated

I’m constantly inundated with questions about the state of Colorado’s wolf repatriation efforts. This is an updated version of Colorado Wolves: Hyped Media Derails Neighborly Coexistence because since this essay was posted, a lot has happened in Colorado's wolf reintroduction project that has become globally newsworthy. Unfortunately, most of the media continues to be anti-wolf.

Source: patrice schoefolt/Pexels.

What’s happening now

Many people recently learned that there is a highly controversial effort in progress by CPW to trap and relocate 5 members of the Copper Creek Pack but the public has no idea what is happening on the ground. A well-balanced article in the New York Times offers views from both wolf advocates and wolf haters.

Based on what we know as of this moment, here's a brief summary. The wolves are being pursued because of attacks on livestock on a ranch where the owner was denied a chronic depredation permit because they did little to deter the wolves.² I hoped Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) would update people about what’s going on but my and others’ requests for more detailed updates have been ignored.¹ Right now, about 6 days into CPW’s operation, we do not know how the wolves are being trapped, who has been caught, where they will go—will it be a new wild location or a sanctuary (I can understand why actual locations might not be disclosed at this time), and how will the pack be reunited after each individual is trapped. (*Please see the update below that indicates that if either of the adults are known predators and are trapped they cannot be relocated into the wild, which potentially would leave the pups stranded without an adult. This is not a good situation for the pups or for the adults who once were wild in Oregon and Colorado and if trapped would spend the rest of their lives caged up.)

While I fully know why some information might have to be kept confidential, there are some basic questions that could be answered with no harm to the wolves or to CPW’s decision to trap and relocate Colorado’s first breeding family of wolves—mom, dad, and their three children—who are here because we brought the parents here. So why the secrecy?This is all being done after around only 8+ months of these wolves being released.

Right now as far as many people are concerned, it’s a matter of wolves lose, ranchers win. Can their differences be reconciled? Is there any hope for a workable consensus in which wolves are not harmed or killed? Despite CPW's trap and relocate project, ranchers remain dissatisfied. For example, Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers association, said the news about trapping and relocating the wolves is a step in the right direction but much more needs to be done—"They still have a long ways to go."^.

Let the wolves be wolves and perform wolf-appropriate behavior

Needless to say, the wolves care about what happens to themselves and their family members—they are fully sentient beings^.3 It’s difficult to imagine how deeply stressed they are being pursued in what was to become their forever homes. Didn’t they suffer enough when being trapped in Oregon and being shipped to Colorado and released in totally strange environs where they were expected to make it on their own, in known hostile ecosystems where they weren’t even marginally welcomed?

Many people and I think the Colorado wolves should have been left alone, Science and ethics say that hands off would have been the best thing to do. For example, we know wolf packs suffer when humans kill their leaders. This can lead to the group becoming less stable and this might cause them to disband and cease to exist as a cohesive unit. It's important to note that such a project did not work in Montana and wolf expert Dr. Adrian Treves has also stressed that capturing and relocating wolves should not be considered nonlethal. CPW claim they’re using “the science” that’s known about wolves but clearly this isn't always so.

There also are serious ethical concerns, We brought the wolves here and we cannot even protect the first group who have been brought here. Any intrusion on the integrity of their pack could be really damaging and If they must be relocated, it has to happen as a group—a very difficult task. Because we are the ones who took the wolves from their original homes we are responsible for their well-being.

These sentient, highly social, and highly intelligent and emotional beings continue to be pawns in an anthropocentric (human-centered) program. We need to consider their point of view—what they are feeling about what's happening to them—and who they truly are. As one of my colleagues aptly puts it, they've done what we wanted them to do—form a pack and make more of themselves—and some people want to punish them—kill them— for pushing the repatriation program forward. This is thoroughly unreasonable arrogant anthropocentrism, an egregious double-cross.

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In fact, the wolves are doing exactly what we wanted them to do—they formed a family group with three pups and contain the DNA of future Colorado wolves. Basically, ranchers who don’t want wolves around got CPW to try to trap and move the wolves who have become pawns in a debate in which the wolves points of view have been thoroughly ignored.

What does the future look like?

Right now they're only 10 wolves on the ground who were brought here from Oregon so why should we ever believe that when there are 40 or 50 wolves and more packs and they're spacing themselves out across Colorado that there won't be even more conflicts with humans. CPW say this new operation isn’t establishing a precedent for the future but of course it is. People will use it against future wolves.

The wolves are simply being wolves and don't we want “real” wolves out there? They were simply doing wolf-appropriate things. The message that I'm getting from a lot of people is the program is doomed because Colorado couldn't even handle the presence of one family pack, and they’re worried about what will happen when many more wolves are here. And forming packs and avoiding the presence of other wolves.

A difficult but important question: Does Colorado deserve wolves? Whether or not Colorado should have more wolves is really up in the air because the CPW decision has taken away the first promise for developing sustainable populations. There’s no doubt that the more wolves there are here the more problems there will be because the ranches will never stop opposing their presence and likely will get much of what they want.

Let’s celebrate that the wolves did what we wanted them to do

Let’s use this good news about this developing wolf pack, a closely knit family group, for their future well-being and success as the wild animals they are meant to be. The well-being of every single wolf in this and future packs matters; no individual is disposable.⁴ Science shows that killing one or more wolves could damage the repatriation efforts.

Colorado is in the process of being robbed of a potential pack who could have contributed to the success of this project. What a bad omen for other wolves who might be brought here. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end ...only time will tell.

Colorado's wolf reintroduction program continues to raise many important and serious questions about the nature of human-animal relationships that can't be swept under the table, under a veil of secrecy. I already know that people working on how we interact with wild neighbors of many different species are using Colorado's program to frame their on-going discussions, as they should.

*Update:

In an essay called Colorado's wolves between a rock and a hard place we read “The Colorado Wolf Plan prohibits the relocation of wolves, saying, ‘the translocation of depredating wolves to a different part of the state will not be considered as this is viewed as translocating the problem along with the wolves.’” We also read: "With no options to relocate the Copper Creek Pack in Colorado, and there being virtually no chance of another state wanting to accept (or even provide) depredating wolves, there are few options. Either the pups will be held with their parents until they are old enough to be released and survive with no hunting experience when they are older, or the entire pack will be placed in a sanctuary. Colorado regulations state: 'No wildlife taken from the wild shall be possessed by any commercial wildlife park, noncommercial wildlife park or wildlife sanctuary in Colorado.' That takes Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center and The Wild Animal Refuge off the table. The Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, however, are exempt from those regulations. No Disney movie ends with five wolves pacing a zoo enclosure."