CPW Commissioners at June Meeting Must Speak Candidly to Condemn Hostile Climate Forged by Anti-Wolf Activists
Lafayette, CO – In the wake of multiple wolf deaths in Colorado including one just this week, wildlife advocates are calling on Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners at their June 11 and 12 meeting to be moral leaders and stem the hostile climate created by anti-wolf activists in order to prevent more horrific killing of a federally protected, and ecologically valuable species, and to foster a new order of nonlethal coexistence.
“It’s time for leadership to soundly repudiate hostility to wolves and to acknowledge in public that wolves bring vast benefits to Colorado’s ecology, and to call for coexistence — not killing — in serious order,” said Julie Marshall, Colorado state director for Animal Wellness Action. “Unless commissioners publicly set the right tone to address what is a human problem, nonlethal coexistence will never happen. We can do so much better. But our leaders need to stop ignoring the abhorrent situation harming both wildlife and humans, and healthy ecosystems.”
Wolf Injuries and Death Timeline
Since reintroduction began last December, multiple wolves have died — the vast majority with serious wounds and/or fatalities at the hands of humans.
Today, news reports that a wolf has died in northwest Colorado.
This past week, a young male wolf pup of the Copper Creek pack was killed in Pitkin County after officials say they were forced to relocate the pup away from Grand County, where a rancher reportedly operated an open carcass pit of livestock serving as an attractant to predators.
In March, officials killed a Colorado wolf that crossed into Wyoming.
In September, in Grand County, a male gray wolf with a GPS collar that had a gunshot injury to its rear leg was found dead.
In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked for information about who shot a gray wolf captured in Grand County last August. There has been no follow up offered to the public.
A Hostile Climate that Continually Goes Unaddressed Endangers Federally Protected Wolves
CPW leadership must set the right tone to protect wildlife, because a hostile climate toward wildlife is a human problem and presents the major obstacle to non-lethal coexistence.
Examples of sound leadership must include:
- A swift rebuke of the anti-wildlife activist crowd that erupted in applause to a comment supporting running over wolves with snowmobiles at a public meeting in Grand County that was held by CPW prior to the most recent reintroduction efforts of wolves in Colorado. This was recorded at a public meeting with local media present and dozens of wildlife agency staff in attendance. The reference of support for cruelty and for killing wolves by snowmobiles for fun was about Cody Roberts, a hound hunter who ran over a young wolf in Wyoming, then paraded her in a bar before shooting her dead.
- A stark condemnation of anti-wolf activists who obstructed and diverted an airplane carrying wolves to Colorado. As reported in the news, activists brandished AR15s, trespassed, and threatened citizens and government workers, all while an airplane carrying wolves to Colorado was set to land in Eagle County. That plane was diverted to Denver International Airport because of activists in real time, who were against wolves and who amassed on the ground, as detailed in an online anti-wolf group called Wolf Tracker. The plane diversion due to action on the ground by anti-wildlife activists has been confirmed by administration at CPW and a source present at the time of the event.