The Trump administration reports Colorado stop importing gray wolves from Canada as part of the state's efforts to restore the raptors, which could interfere with reintroduction plans this winter.
The state has been releasing wolves west of the Continental Divide since 2023 after Colorado voters narrowly approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. About 30 wolves now roam the state's mountainous regions, and its management plan calls for potentially 200 or more wolves in the long term.
The program proved unpopular in rural areas, where wolves attacked livestock. Now, after two winters of release during President Joe Biden's administration, wolf opponents appear to have found support among federal officials under President Donald Trump.
Colorado wolves must be native to the Northern Rocky Mountain states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik told Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis in a recent letter published by the agricultural news publication Fence Post.
Most of those states, including the Yellowstone states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where wolves were reintroduced from Canada in the 1990s, have said they do not want to participate in Colorado's reintroduction.
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That could put Colorado in a tough spot this winter. The state plans to relocate 10 to 15 wolves under an agreement with British Columbia's Ministry of Water, Land and Resources, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Luke Perkins said in a statement Friday.
The agreement was signed before the state received Nesvik's Oct. 10 letter, Perkins said. He said the state “continues to evaluate all options to support the release of gray wolves this year” after receiving “recent guidance” from the Fish and Wildlife Service.
While some of the wolves reintroduced to Colorado came from Oregon, the most recently released wolves came from British Columbia.
The question now is whether the federal agency required that wolves come only from the northern U.S. Rocky Mountain states when it designated an “experimental” population of reintroduced wolves in Colorado.
The federal notice announcing wolf designation in 2023 refers to the northern Rocky Mountain region simply as a “preferred” rather than mandatory source of wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife attorney Lisa Salzburg said in a statement that the Fish and Wildlife Service is “distorting language” by saying wolves cannot come from Canada or Alaska.
People in Colorado “should be proud of their state's leadership in conservation and coexistence, and the wolf reintroduction program exemplifies those values,” Salzburg said.
The Colorado Governor's Office and Colorado Parks and Wildlife have been in contact with the Interior Department about the letter and evaluating “all options” for allowing wolf releases this year, Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jared Polis, said in an email.
Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Garrett Peterson, whose voicemail said he would not be available until the government shutdown ends, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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