Wolf reintroduction possible in Colorado
By Theo Stein
Denver Post Staff Writer
The discovery of a dead Yellowstone wolf along Interstate 70 this month
has caused many Coloradans to assume wolves are most likely to recolonize
the state from the north.
But under a federal effort to recover the species in the Southwest,
southern Colorado will probably have to accept wolves, too, a state
biologist told the state wolf panel last week.
“And in that case, the most likely way to do that is to reintroduce them,”
said Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist Gary Skiba, who sits on the
federal Southwest recovery team.
The news of a possible federal wolf reintroduction program came as a
“bombshell” to Delta veterinarian Dick Steele, a state wolf panelist.
“This would open the door to reintroducing wolves in Colorado and having
them shoved down our throats by the feds,” he said.
A federal wolf reintroduction could proceed over the objection of Colorado
officials, but Steele thinks state residents need to be involved from the
start.
Steele said the potential cost of Yellowstone wolves to ranchers, hunters
and the tourism industry in northern Colorado was troubling enough. A
future reintroduction in southern Colorado could cause even greater
disruption for Western Slope residents, he said.
Wolf reintroduction in the northern Rockies has been so successful that
the government wants to remove the West’s top predator from the endangered
species list.
But illegal shootings and local hostility have left the Mexican wolf
reintroduction program far short of success.
However, the Endangered Species Act requires that the government recover
wolves in the Southwestern “distinct population segment” – which runs from
I-70 in Colorado to the Mexican border.
While scientists are still more than a year away from writing the recovery
plan, one recent study showed that southern Colorado and northern New
Mexico have some of the best unoccupied wolf habitat in the U.S.
“The team is ultimately looking at how many wolves we need to recover the
species and where those wolves should go,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service biologist Tracy Scheffler.
“Every inch of the Southwest is in play,” said team member Michael
Phillips, a biologist with the Turner Endangered Species Foundation.