Commission’s ag reps clarify livestock handling, applaud wolf impacted producers

From The Fencepost

Sep 6, 2024

By Rachel Gabel 

Photo: CPW placed GPS collars on two wolves in North Park on Feb. 2. CPW’s team was doing wolf capture and collaring work in conjunction with elk and moose capture efforts for ongoing research studies in the area. Photo courtesy CPW

Delia Malone, wildlife chair of the Colorado Sierra Club, Dallas Gudgel, wildlife and

Tribal policy director for International Wildlife Coexistence Network, and Dr. Adrian Treves, director of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin appeared before the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission on Aug. 23.

Malone asked the commission to ensure that the state require that livestock producers exhaust proactive, appropriate, and properly implemented non-lethal coexistence methods that are based on best available science to reduce and minimize conflict between livestock producers and gray wolves prior to any issuance of a permit to kill a wolf. This is already clarified in the state Wolf Plan.

The three were granted 20 minutes before the commission, in Colorado Springs before a large crowd of wolf advocates, to discuss low stress cattle handling. They told the commission that wolves are going to continue to be wolves, humans are the ones who will have to change their behavior.

Chairman Dallas May, a rancher, spoke and said ranchers utilize low stress livestock handling as a rule.

“They use low stress livestock handling,” he said. “That’s how you survive in a low margin business.”

May said the group’s data illustrated the success of coexistence in normal situations, but in Colorado, it’s less than normal.

“We agree on the biology, we agree on what happens in a normal situation, but we have an abnormal situation,” he said. “We have taken wolves, unnaturally caught them, put them into an area, and almost forced them to be habituated with people. By the very nature of catching them and bringing them in and putting them in a situation where they have to survive, we have done that.”

ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR

May said he didn’t believe the recent depredation of a group of eight sheep killed and abandoned in daylight is normal wolf behavior.

“We have forced these wolves into a situation they can’t get out of, we’ve forced these producers into a situation they can’t get out of, so let’s learn from this and help get past this situation,” May said. “I agree — every producer wants to do nonlethal. Nobody wants to go to that point.”

May also reminded that state statute prohibits land use, water use, and resource restrictions on producers as part of the language of Prop 114.

According to CPW’s Gray Wolf Annual Report, released Sept. 4, the female wolf of the Copper Creek Pack, 2312, was captured and driven while unsedated back to Colorado. The report with data for the biological year, April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, does not include any depredations by the released wolves as the first confirmed depredation involving them was confirmed by CPW on April 1, 2024.

Commissioner Tai Jacober, newly appointed agriculture representative, said successful cattle producers take care of their cattle. He also clarified that the methods brought forward in the presentation were not low stress livestock handling, but rather human presence with daily range riding. He said coexistence is important, but it’s not a small change for livestock producers in terms of the labor, time and resources needed.

Newly appointed Commissioner Murphy Robinson asked about the duration during which conflict minimization measures are effective. Treves indicated that daily range riding with low stress cattle handling was effective over the grazing season with a two-year budget of $100,000. 

In his wolf update on Aug. 23, Reid DeWalt, deputy director of policy, confirmed at least three pups born into the Copper Creek Pack. The agency announced on Aug. 27 that the pack would be relocated.

DeWalt said the ad hoc working group implemented by CPW to guide CPW on decreasing tensions surrounding wolves and to explore potential alternatives for chronic depredation and when depredation permits be issued. Three meetings have been hosted as of the commission meeting, a fourth is planned for September to finalize input about chronic depredation.

FURTHER RELEASES

He said CPW continues to work with other locations to secure source wolves for release this winter and  said they are hopeful to reach an agreement. He said the northern release zone where the initial releases were completed will be where wolves are released again this winter to supplement the population.

Chairman May said the livestock producers most negatively affected by wolves have “shown incredible restraint and I think they should be applauded for that rather than a lot of the reports I get…” May said the cooperation of the livestock producers is made evident by the successful denning and the pups that resulted.

“That has worked,” May said. “It’s been under incredible odds against all this happening. You know, the wolves were put in an untenable situation as they were captured, brought here, and put in the situation that they have one instinct and that is to survive, and they have done that. So I think instead of demonize the people on the landscape who are living with this, we should be working more closely with them and thanking them for the success of this pair of wolves that came from outside this country and have now successfully done what they were put here to do.”

May said it’s a credit to CPW, a credit to those who have supported the efforts, and a credit to the livestock producers in the area. Successful restoration, he said, will include success of the livestock producers as well as the wolves. He also reiterated his desire for a rapid response team of wolf experts and experts in human dimensions that can respond and help producers on the ground resolve conflicts and help relieve pressures on local CPW staff.