In 2020, the State of Colorado’s voters took to the polls for a long list of ballot questions, one of which is seemingly starting to impact Western Fremont and the northern part of Custer County this past year. 50.91% of the state’s voters said yes to Colorado Proposition 114: the Reintroduction and Management of Gray Wolves Proposition in 2020, and that slim majority set the wheels in motion for the Gray Wolves to be reintroduced into the State of Colorado. The reasoning for the bill by supporters was that wolves would help balance the ecosystem in Colorado as packs would cull out diseased elk and deer, which would also help Aspen trees and Willows that are chronically overgrazed by ungulates.
According to a map of collared Wolves that was released by the Colorado Department of Wildlife on Wednesday, January 22, at least one female wolf has been exploring Western Fremont County in the past year and might have dipped into Custer County to the west of Hillside in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. This wolf is one of 29 confirmed wolves in the state.
For many locals, this came as a bit of a surprise, as most of the conversations about wolves have focused on the extreme northern part of the state for the past several years. Even before Proposition 114 was passed, there was evidence that wolves had already made it into the State from Wyoming. Yet, the ranchers in the region recognized that it was only a matter of time before wolves started to explore the area. Voters in Custer and Fremont counties voted against the wolf reintroduction program, with 67% casting a “no” vote.
To say that the wolf reintroduction has been hotly contested would be an understatement. The State of Colorado has set up a small fund to help compensate ranchers for lost sheep or cattle due to wolf predation. In 2024, ranchers submitted $582,000 in claims for damage caused by wolves from either predation or from stress on herds, lowering weight gain during the year. The state, however, only has $350,000 in the fund to compensate for losses.
The claims filed by ranchers claimed that 27 calves and cows were killed by wolves, with 100 more missing. In addition, more than 1,500 cows showed lower birth rates and less weight gain in regions stalked by wolves. Of the state’s 4 million head of cattle, an estimated 1.5 million of those are on pasture in areas that will be affected by a growing wolf population (note that an estimated 1.8 million of the state’s cattle are confined in feedlots each year, which are located in the eastern plains of Colorado).
As a comparison, Montana has lost 58 head of cattle and 41 sheep on average per year for the past decade, with an estimated wolf population of 1,000. However, the comparison between Colorado and Montana is imperfect, as the state has half the number of cattle and a fifth of the human population compared to Colorado. Further north in British Columbia, wildlife officials have rapidly expanded a wolf killing program in an effort to help the declining number of endangered Caribou. Almost 3,000 wolves have been culled since the program started in 2015.
Ironically, Wolves in the Wet Mountain Valley region were never a big issue for the first settlers and livestock operators in the late 1800s. There is only a single mention of local wolf predation in the newspapers of the time in the Silver Cliff Rustler in 1899. “It is reported that considerable damage is being done to stock in the vicinity of Wetmore by gray wolves. The slaughter of yearlings and calves by the wolves is said to be quite heavy. Strvchnine will be used in an effort to exterminate these pests, and should this method fail, a grand wolf hunt will probably be organized.”
Indeed, the risk of wolves to livestock in the region was a chimera, and newspapers locally enjoyed the equivalent of clickbait stories about the devastating impact of wolves in Russia, Hungry, Canada, and Wyoming. The last report of a possible wolf sighting in the region was reported in 1907 in the Wet Mountain Tribune. “Albert Baker spent a portion of last week down in Gardner country endeavoring to trap some of those ferocious gray wolves that have been doing damage to the herds of the cattlemen of the vicinity for some time. He was unsuccessful in getting any wolves but succeeded in trapping 27 coyotes and 3 bobcats. He also trapped a silver-grey fox, a fine specimen. This species of fox, on account of its scarcity, is quoted at $800 to $1,000.”
According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, the wolf population had been devastated long before the first permanent settlers showed up in Colorado due to the hunting and whole-scale slaughter of elk and bison in Colorado in the mid-1800s. The favored prey of wolves, elk, were hunted almost to extinction, and by 1900, there were less than 1000 elk left in the entire state of Colorado. The damage done to elk herds in the Valley seems to have been total, as there is only one mention of elk spotted in the newspapers at the time.
From a historical perspective, this moment in modernity is likely the first time that locals and livestock producers are going to have to face ranching with a growing but still small wolf population in the region. Colorado Wildlife Officers have been working with ranchers in the state to try and keep conflict between wolves and livestock to a minimum. In one instance this last year, a pack of wolves was trapped and moved out of an area where they had been hunting calves in early spring; at first, it was announced that that pack would not be released back into the wild in Colorado. However, four of the pups and the mother were released with other captured wolves from British Columbia, with the male not being released.
What is clear is that the deep divide over the topic of wolves, which is often fueled by the urban/rural political divide, will continue both locally and at the state level.
– Jordan Hedberg