Decision on citizen petition to halt wolf introductions is still pending as CPW staff work on a recommendation

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is asking for patience as it reviews a petition submitted by 26 groups asking the state to pause its next release of wolves.

In October, this group of rancher organizations petitioned Colorado Parks and Wildlife, asking the agency’s commission to stop reintroduction efforts for gray wolves until more tools are fully implemented to reduce conflict with livestock. 

“You are not required to introduce wolves at a certain pace, you were only required to introduce wolves by Dec. 31, 2023. You have done that,” said Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, one of the 26 organizations listed on the petition. “Now your mandate is to adaptively manage wolves. This means you should be willing to change your approach to address issues as they arise.”

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While Ritschard presented the petition at the commission’s Thursday, Nov. 14, meeting, it did not rule on the request, frequently citing protocols for citizen petitions. 

“Our policy is very clear. We have clear direction, and we’re in big danger if we vary from that,” said Commissioner Chair Dallas May. 

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This policy includes a requirement for all citizen petitions to be reviewed by Parks and Wildlife staff and the Colorado Attorney General before the commission can decide to deny the petition or grant it and hold a rule-making hearing.

Despite several commissioners pushing the agency to give a timeline for when the recommendation may come, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis only reiterated that the agency is currently in the staff review portion of this process. 

The wolf petition is one of four the agency has received and that are pending decisions. 

“We have a duty to listen to and/or consider all petitions, all of which need to have weigh-in from the director and his team,” said Commissioner Murphy Robinson. “I think that we would be out of compliance with our own policies and procedures if we didn’t also look at the other petitions that came before as well.”

On Thursday, the commission heard individuals speak in support of both continuing the reintroduction and pausing it. 

Is working on it enough? 

The petition makes several requests to the commission, asking to not release additional wolves until these items are in place.

This includes defining “chronic depredation;” furthering research into best practices for nonlethal methods and developing programs for some of these methods including range riding and carcass management; hiring and rolling out a rapid response to respond to wolf conflicts with livestock; and crafting a plan to improve communication with impacted communities and ranchers. 

The requests made in the petition were echoed in an October letter from Colorado Counties, a nonprofit group representing all counties in the state except for Denver County. 

On Thursday, the commission heard updates on several ongoing programs, trainings and processes that address many of the concerns laid out in the petition. 

The agency has landed on a definition of chronic depredation and appropriate management: “When there is a wolf or wolves that are repeatedly causing conflict in a small geography over a limited amount of time, that it is appropriate to remove those wolves from the landscape,” said Reid DeWalt, Parks and Wildlife’s deputy director. 

The definition is currently being reviewed by the Attorney General’s Office to ensure it complies with state and federal regulations. After this, it will be considered for adoption.

The commission also heard updates on pending programs and research for range riding, carcass management, depredation investigations and site vulnerability assessments for ranchers. It has also hired five conflict specialists — with more likely to be hired. 

Ritschard, speaking on behalf of the petitioners, argued that having these things in progress is not enough. 

“Without programs in place, we will be right back where we were in April of 2024,” he said, referring to when depredation events started to occur with the reintroduced wolves.

“Essential programs to minimize conflict are underdeveloped and underfunded,” Ritschard said. “Even if (Colorado Parks and Wildlife) has a plan, livestock producers don’t know it.”

Parks and Wildlife does not want to pause 

While the agency and commission have not made any rulings on the petition, its director has said pausing reintroduction will be against its mandate to create and manage a self-sustaining population of wolves. 

Currently, the wolves are moving individually across the landscape, traveling between 100 to 200 miles a week, Davis said on Thursday. This movement pattern makes it more difficult for Parks and Wildlife to be proactive in minimizing conflict with ranchers. 

“It’s really important that we get more animals on the landscape so we can see pairing, breeding and pack formation,” Davis said.

When the wolves create packs, they establish and defend territories, making Parks and Wildlife’s jobs easier as they can start to better track and monitor behavior, he added. 

“We can line up those site assessments with those pack travel patterns and make sure that we’re improving communication with ranchers about wolf activity in those areas but also have our strategies set up to avoid and minimize conflicts between wolves and livestock,” Davis said.

This was also stated in Davis’s response to Colorado Counties. 

“If we were to pause, it is likely that additional wolves from this preliminary source will also die before having the opportunity to pair and breed, making it harder to achieve Proposition 114’s mandate to establish a self-sustaining population of wolves in Colorado,” Davis wrote. “Ten has become 7, and 7 may become 5 or even 4. Such a small number of wolves cannot adequately serve as a founding population to a self-sustaining population.” 

Pausing now, he said will send the agency back to “square one” in its restoration effort. 

However, at Thursday’s meeting, Commissioner Marie Haskett said everyone needed to slow down a bit. 

“We got pushed into doing all this, and it’s not fair to anybody,” Haskett said. “We’re behind, livestock producers are behind, and we all need to find a way to catch up. I don’t know what the exact answer is to that, but we definitely need to be ahead of it when wolves hit the ground next time.”

Wolves on the way 

As the petition progresses through the wildlife agency’s process, Parks and Wildlife continues to prepare for up to 15 more wolves to be introduced starting in January. The next wolves will be coming from British Columbia and are likely to be hitting the ground in Garfield, Eagle or Pitkin counties. 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife met with representatives from these three counties as well as Rio Blanco County last week. After the meeting, the agency removed Rio Blanco from the list of potential release sites due to a lack of places where risk was low in terms of elevating conflict. 

Both Davis and DeWalt said that this meeting represents one way the agency is learning from its past mistakes with wolves. 

“We heard criticisms about our missteps in our communication with the counties and this was our attempt to do that better this year,” DeWalt said.