8 MAY 15-21, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Wolf Watch WOLVES ARE EXPANDING IN COLORADO, AND SO ARE BATTLES OVER LIVESTOCK DEPREDATION REPAYMENTS. BY CATIE C HESHIRE Colorado is eighteen months into the state’s wolf restoration project, and the teeth are still coming out. So far, the state has paid over $370,000 in claims to ranchers who have been impacted by the presence of wolves near their opera- tions. Although wolf advocates and detractors both agree that Colorado should compensate people for wolf-related losses, ranchers be- lieve the funds are not enough to cover the full breadth of the impact of the carnivores in this state. Conversely, wildlife advocates question if some of the reimbursements that ranchers have claimed are a good use of taxpayer money. The wolf-related claims that made many wildlife advocates howl came on December 31 from three ranchers in Middle Park. The ranchers argued the state should pay over $500,000 for wolf-related losses — but of that amount, less than $18,500 was for direct death or injury to sheep and cattle caused by wolves. The rest was for missing livestock, reduced weaning weights and fewer births at ranches with confi rmed wolf attacks or kills. The Colorado Wolf Restoration and Man- agement Plan allows for compensation for indirect losses, but the amounts claimed exceeded what the state legislature had con- templated when it established the Wolf Com- pensation Depredation Fund, which receives $350,000 annually from the general fund. Still, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously approved almost $290,000 for one of the claims in March. That request, from Farrell Livestock, in- cluded $178,000 for reduced weights in over 1,400 calves and $90,000 for a 3 percent conception rate decrease compared to the three years prior to 2024. And that’s not counting an as-yet unapproved claim by Farrell Ranch for $112,000 in missing cattle and another $100,000 claim from a rancher in Grand County. If those are approved, the 2024 allocation would be far overspent. The 2024 budget was offi cially exceeded on May 8, when commissioners approved a $32,768 claim for two confi rmed depreda- tions on calves and fourteen missing calves; the commission will consider the remaining six-fi gure claims later this year. “What we’re seeing is, ‘Wow, these claims are really big.’ They’re bigger than we’ve seen before, but we’re also trying to iron out the system so it’s fair and balanced to people and wolves,” says Samantha Miller, a senior carnivore campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity who lives in Grand Lake. Miller believes that if ranchers, wolf ad- vocates and state departments continue to collaborate, the fl uctuation in claims can be evened out. Colorado is reintroducing wolves after voters approved a ballot measure to do so in 2020. State advocates began to push for reintroduction after waiting for years for the federal government to take action. When the feds failed to do so, advocates took matters into their own hands. Front Range popula- tions voted for the idea, but ranchers in the Western Slope, where the wolves have been released, did not. The measure required reintroduced wolves to be on the ground in Colorado by the end of 2023. The state’s wolf compensation program is the most generous of any state that has re- introduced wolves, but ranchers still believe the amount is not enough to outweigh the negative effects on their land and livestock. There are only 27 known wolves roaming the state right now. This has caused wolves to act out of character, according to wildlife experts, since it is harder for them to form packs, hunt and establish territories.At the same time, ranchers worry about what will happen when there are more wolves. “To me, that $350,000 is a drop in the bucket to what is going to happen when wolves get established and start covering the state of Colorado and having more depreda- tions at scale,” says Andy Spann, president of the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Associa- tion. “That fund is underfunded, gigantically underfunded. It’s hard to put a number on what that should be when depredations start happening across the Western Slope.” Ranchers can be compensated for low- weaning weights or low conception rates, ac- cording to Spann, but there are many more indirect impacts that could be considered, like the extra time and resources needed to deal with wolves or the emotional impact the situation has on ranchers. However, wolf reintroduction advocates worry that the lack of a standard to determine whether losses are actually wolf- related could lead to fund misallocation. “What we need is objective and clear evidence that wolves are actually the cause of lower animal weights or fewer calves be- ing born,” says Ryan Sedgeley, the southern Rockies representative for the Endangered Species Coalition. “We could just see the program getting depleted rather quickly.” Through a spokesperson, CPW says all approved claims will be paid “from the most appropriate source available.” According to Delia Malone, an ecologist with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and vice-chair of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, while ranchers may be able to show that weights or conception rates were lower, there is still no way to prove wolves are the main cause. “There really is no solid science that says the mere presence of a wolf will cause those so-called production losses,” she says. “They can correlate, but they cannot prove that a loss in weight gain or declining conception rates were due solely to wolves.” Malone was stunned that the CPW com- mission approved the fi rst claim in full. “We are totally supportive of compensat- ing for proven losses,” Malone says. “That’s not even a question, but this is so far out of the realm of reality and the realm of provability. ...These folks are trying to claim that just the presence caused a loss of $200,000.” Items like depleted food sources, disease, accidents, drought and other carnivores could also play a role, Malone suggests. According to USDA data, only about 0.01 percent of live- stock losses in the country are due to wolves. But Tim Ritschard, president of the Mid- dlepark Stockgrowers Association, says ranchers keep logs of cattle weights and conditions each year, since they face huge losses in down years. “We as producers consistently sell our calves every year, usually around the same timeframe every year, so we have an average of what our calves weigh at the time and we know what they should weigh,” says Ritschard, whose family has run a ranch in Kremmling for fi ve generations. “When we have wolf activity and, all of a sudden, our calves are coming home weighing thirty to forty pounds lighter and yet, we have a re- ally good year, there’s something going on.” Ritschard didn’t suffer from wolf dep- redation or indirect issues himself, but says those in Middlepark who did could not identify any large change to the landscape this year other than wolves. “People think that we’re just doing this,” Ritschard says. “We’re stewards of the land. ...We take care of our cattle. We notice when the ground’s not producing as well, and so we cut our cow numbers, or we move our cows and allow that ground to rest and come back to what it was. We’ve been doing this forever. If we weren’t doing that, we wouldn’t be in business today.” As a middle ground, wildlife advocates have suggested requiring ranchers use nonlethal wolf confl ict reduction methods as a require- ment for compensation. Through the Born to Be Wild license plate, the state has raised over $600,000 toward purchasing equipment for such strategies, but ranchers are only required to use the techniques if they are applying for a lethal control permit to kill wolves. Current regulations allow ranchers to collect more money from the depredation fund if they used nonlethal methods to re- duce confl ict, but some believe the extra multiplier isn’t enough of an incentive. State Representative Tammy Story and Senator Kevin Priola sponsored a bill to require nonlethal methods in 2024, but the bill did not move past an initial committee hearing. “That is still, really, in my mind, essential to make this a sustainable plan,” Malone says. According to Sedgeley, livestock predation very rarely occurred when nonlethal techniques were deployed in other states with wolves. “The presence of wolves can also impact how herds act,” Miller says. “So if we’re doing everything with nonlethals to keep wolves further away from cows, then sheep and cows don’t feel that stress or pressure of the animals around. That’s why I say nonlethals are the best, because they help both with direct and indirect losses.” But Spann and Ritschard both vehemently disagree that any sort of nonlethal methods should be required for compensation. “To say we don’t get compensated because we didn’t mitigate for wolves? Absolutely not,” Spann says. “We can prepare as much as we want to. I don’t know how much it’s going to help.” Both men argue NEWS continued on page 11 KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS The fi rst gray wolf was released in Colorado in 2023. ENDANGERED SPECIES COALITION
