Colorado Parks and Wildlife awards $50,000 in grants to boost sales of wolf license plate

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has awarded $50,000 to two organizations to promote the state’s “Born to Be Wild” wolf license plate, which generates funding for non-lethal tools and programs to mitigate and reduce conflict between wolves and livestock.

This is the inaugural award of the agency’s grant program, which sets aside up to $50,000 annually to raise awareness and promote sales of the specialty license plate. Jeff Davis, the director of Parks and Wildlife, stated in a press release that the hope is the grant program will engage the public with the license plate, increase sales and in turn, reduce the impacts of wolves on livestock. 

Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, a Colorado-based wolf advocacy organization that proposed the license plate to state legislators in 2023, was awarded $36,300 to fund promotional billboards and digital media. 

The Endangered Species Coalition, a national wildlife advocacy nonprofit, was granted $13,700 for wrapping a vehicle that promotes the license plate. The vehicle will travel across the state, to events, and to places like zoos to raise awareness for the plate.

Since January 2024, the state has sold around 18,000 wolf license plates and raised nearly $950,000. The majority of these dollars go to Parks and Wildlife’s wolf conflict mitigation programs. According to the agency, it played an “instrumental” role in launching the range rider program earlier this year, which the wildlife agency created with the Colorado Department of Agriculture.