Sarah Kyle, The Coloradoan
Nature’s cruelty is pushing a Rist Canyon sanctuary for more than 30 wolf-dogs out of its mountain home.
The animals — and the humans who care for them — have weathered fires, floods and harsh conditions since W.O.L.F. Sanctuary’s debut in 1995. Additionally, county restrictions limit the number of animals the sanctuary can host and prohibit the public from using the road to visit the facility.
The High Park Fire in 2012 proved especially tricky when the time came to evacuate nearly 30 animals with wild instincts and large enclosures designed to accommodate a wolf’s instinctual need to roam. The process took a week. The nonprofit is still trying to settle with its insurance company after losing four structures and two enclosures to the flames.
Multiple flash floods after the fire left the property in a state of constant repair. The facility has undergone six significant flooding events since the High Park Fire, said Executive Director Shelley Coldiron.
“It’s just been one thing after another,” Coldiron said. “We just keep getting hit and hit and hit and hit.”
The wishlist W.O.L.F. staff and board members are drafting creates a picture of a facility that would be safer for animals and humans, give the public the freedom to enjoy and get to know the animals and allow the facility take in more animals on a yearly basis.
The sanctuary can care for a maximum of 30 wolf-dogs in its current location. Staff estimate the sanctuary turns down an average of at least 200 animals a year. Ideally, a new location would allow W.O.L.F. to expand its capacity and save more wolves and wolf-dogs from the captive breeding industry.
There’s just one problem: W.O.L.F. has no assets to leverage or sell. The nonprofit bought the property from Pat Lanteri and Frank Wendland and is paying for the land through promissory notes.
But at the bottom of a ravine, the location of the property has proven to be more trouble than anything, said board chairman Mervyn Jacobson.
“This whole setup was put in place by other people,” Jacobson said. “We took over under a crisis situation and have tried to make it work here. We’ve stepped in to do what we can to help the animals, to save the animals. But we need a new location.”
With the sanctuary’s current animal capacity alone, it would need a minimum of 15 acres of enclosure space to accommodate 15 pairs of wolf-dogs. Coldiron said the group would also need space for a medical clinic, shed for meets, tool shed and administrative offices. The dream is to have around 75 acres.
Rebuilding enclosures will be a significant chunk of money, she said. W.O.L.F. is currently drawing up estimates to see just how much materials, which include a mix of high grade and low grade fencing, fire dens and gates, would cost.
This year, the sanctuary had its first escapee, a wolf-dog named Cree that wildlife officials in New Mexico rounded up this year from life in the wild and brought to W.O.L.F. Cree’s wiliness led W.O.L.F. to bring in multiple experts to upgrade the security of her closure. Ideally, those lessons will be transferred to all enclosures at the new facility.
W.O.L.F. is currently raising funds for a new property, which would ideally be a more accessible mountain location, and enclosure supplies. Coldiron said the group is beginning to seek out potential land donors who might be willing to give a plot of land or sell land at a reduced price.
“The dream would be that someone gives us some land next spring and we’re ready to roll and get the animals moved over the summer,” Coldiron said.
The process could take months if not years, she said. Even once a new property is acquired, the sanctuary will have to undergo licensing issues and zoning issues to reopen in a new place.
When W.O.L.F. first opened, complaints by neighbors of howling led to a lengthy process with Larimer County officials that limited the number of animals and visitors.
In the meantime, sanctuary staff and volunteers are working to repair the most recent array of erosion and damages and ready its 30 wolf-dogs for another winter in the canyon.