Wildlife advocates ask British Columbia to stand firm in decision to supply wolves to Colorado 

Coloradans’ split opinions on the state’s reintroduction of gray wolves have made their way across the border into Canada.

One week after a group of 26 organizations asked British Columbia wildlife officials not to supply Colorado with more wolves, a group of wildlife advocacy organizations is making their own appeal to the Canadian province. 

“We urge you to resist any calls to break or reconsider this vital agreement,” wrote Rob Edward, president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, in a Dec. 3 letter to British Columbia officials on behalf of 13 other signatories. “To do so would undermine a visionary partnership and embolden those seeking to disregard the democratic process in Colorado.”

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The letter is also signed by representatives from the Center for Biological Diversity, Colorado Nature League, Colorado Nature Action, ColoradoWild, Wolf Awareness, WildEarth Guardians, the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, Defenders of Wildlife, San Juan Citizens Alliance, the Western Watersheds Project, and Wolf and Wildlife Advocates.

Matt Barnes, a conservationist listed as a human-carnivore specialist and rangeland scientist, and Norman Bishop, a member of the Wolf Recovery Project with the Yellowstone Center for Resources, are also listed among the signatories. 

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British Columbia’s Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship reached an agreement with Parks and Wildlife earlier this year to supply Colorado with its next 15 wolves. The capture and release operations are planned for January through March.

The letter expresses support for the partnership between British Columbia and Parks and Wildlife and asks the wildlife ministry to stand firm in its decision to supply wolves amid calls from livestock and agriculture producers asking the opposite. 

On Nov. 26, a group of 26 organizations — representing various agricultural and livestock groups — asked British Columbia to reconsider sending the wolves, claiming Colorado’s reintroduction efforts have been “plagued with problems” for the animals and ranching community. 

The letter mirrors the concerns of a petition submitted to Colorado Parks and Wildlife by a nearly identical group of organizations. The petition, sent to the agency’s commission in September, asks the state agency to pause reintroduction efforts until several conflict mitigation and funding programs are fully implemented. It contains seven specific requests ranging from defining chronic depredation to fully developing programs for carcass management, range riding, and other nonlethal approaches.

“Without programs in place, we will be right back where we were in April of 2024,” said Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, on behalf of the petitioners at the November commission meeting. 

The first confirmed depredation events with Colorado’s reintroduced wolves were in April in Middle Park. Ultimately, the volume of livestock killings in the area led to the removal and relocation of the Copper Creek pack to a wildlife sanctuary.

“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.”

The petition was presented to the commission in November but remains undecided as the commissioners await a staff recommendation before it will decide whether to deny the petition or consider any rulemaking. 

The December letter from wildlife advocates calls this request “a direct affront to the decision made by Colorado’s voters and to the spirit of cooperative conservation between our regions.”

“The livestock industry’s portrayal of this program as a ‘calamity,’ as noted in their September 2024 petition to ‘pause’ further translocation, grossly mischaracterizes the actual success of wolf reintroduction efforts,” Edward wrote in the letter.