By Scott Willoughby
The Denver Post
Wolf.
Now that we’ve got your attention, let’s set the record straight.
Yes, it’s true that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service mentioned the contentious canines in a recent draft plan to manage overabundant elk populations affecting wildlife habitat on the San Luis Valley’s National Wildlife Refuges near Alamosa.
No, the service does not have any intent to reintroduce wolves to the valley in southern Colorado.
“The draft plan references a suggestion by some members of the public that the service consider wolves as a potential management tool,” USFWS Mountain-Prairie Region director Steve Guertin said via e-mail this week. “By law, the service is required to analyze the comments and suggestions we receive. We do not, however, believe that wolf reintroduction is the appropriate management strategy for this area.”
Not that such denials matter all that much once Little Red Riding Hood has her knickers in a twist. Should so much as a mention of the big, bad wolf be allowed in the room, the critics pounce.
Chief among them is Safari Club International’s Colorado chapter, which last week sent out a flash e-mail to members that included a letter from Salt Lake City-based Big Game Forever founder Ryan Benson decrying the consideration of wolves among the four draft management alternatives.
“Without a very substantial outcry from sportsmen and livestock owners, wolves will very likely be placed in Colorado this year,” Benson’s letter reads. “While attempts have been made to dismiss the use of wolves as ‘not the preferred alternative,’ now that they are an official part of the plan, we are one very small step away from having wolves introduced in Baca National Wildlife Refuge.”
Alternative C among the four options for managing the Alamosa, Baca and Monte Vista national wildlife refuges as they are united under a comprehensive conservation plan includes this sentence: “The service would explore the potential for wolf reintroduction for balancing wildlife populations.”
But that step is considerably larger than the alarmists might have us believe. As evidenced by the tumultuous reintroduction of gray wolves to the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes region, followed by their subsequent delisting, relisting and delisting as endangered or threatened species in various locales, the decision to drop a pack of wolves into the relatively confined quarters of Colorado’s San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex during the initial 15-year management plan is unlikely.
“It is important to set the record straight: The service in fact has no plans and no intent to reintroduce wolves in the valley,” Guertin wrote. “We have instead put forward three other options including public hunting, which we believe will help ensure that the wildlife refuges in the San Luis Valley continue to provide high quality habitat for elk and other species — as well as recreational and economic benefits for local communities.”
The service’s “proposed action,” Alternative B, includes public hunting to complement state efforts to reduce the elk population to levels that sustain healthy native plant communities on the refuge complex. The plan aims to maximize public uses on all three refuges, including the 500,000-acre Baca NWR currently closed to public access. A final decision on the management plan is not expected until 2014.
While highly controversial, the reintroduction of a major predator such as wolves has established itself as a lethally effective means of culling and redistributing big-game populations.
Researchers cite the 1996 reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park for scattering elk herds and allowing the recovery of park lands, but wolves straying outside the park’s boundaries have drawn opposition from ranchers, hunters and others.
In 2009, the first year wolf hunting was allowed since their reintroduction in Idaho and Montana, more than 42,000 wolf permits were sold.
Environmental groups advocated releasing wolves in Rocky Mountain National Park as a means of controlling escalating elk herds responsible for overgrazing. The National Park Service rejected that plan and decided instead to use sharpshooters to help reduce the number of elk.