Polis addresses latest wolf depredation in Colorado

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Gov. Polis’ stance on reintroduction.

DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed that another wolf depredation incident happened Sunday in Grand County, marking six confirmed incidents since the beginning of 2024.

In a press conference unrelated to the wolf depredations, Gov. Jared Polis on Monday responded to the latest incident.

“I was a business owner myself,” he said. “Any cause of loss to a business is terrible and it’s even more emotional, obviously, for people who have deep connections to their cattle and their land.”

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Polis acknowledged a majority of Coloradans backed the ballot initiative and he has supported the management plan that was developed as part of the process.

“Voters knew that wolves would eat cattle, and they voted to reintroduce them anyway,” he said.

Commissioner: Colorado game wardens busy with wolf depredation

The latest wolf depredation incident happened on a ranch where a producer has already seen four incidents involving calves.

“It’s on a not-good trend to keep going in this manner,” said Merrit Linke, Grand County commissioner. “It all kind of hits home when it happens to you or your friends and neighbors.”

As the number of incidents continues to trend upward, Linke said the local CPW game wardens have been extra busy.

“They should be doing some of the other spring activities like counting the sage grouse, because you know that was a big issue a few years ago,” Linke said. “And the shed hunters. It’s a big issue that people come up, and a lot of trespassing — they go out into people’s fields and they want to collect the sheds from elk and deer, and they end up disturbing a lot of the game in that process of doing that.”

He added he has noticed an observable strain on game wardens as they perform their duties while also investigating livestock deaths.

“They’re stressed, they’re stretched thin on this, they don’t have enough help, they don’t get enough support from up the chain,” he said.

‘Think about what we did to bring that wolf here’

Linke said it also calls into question whether or not the reintroduction was beneficial for the wolves.

“I have great respect for the wolf,” he said. “Think about what we did to bring that wolf here. We went to a state a thousand miles away, and we ran them down with a helicopter, and we shot them with a net gun or a tranquilizer, put him in a cage … took him away from his pack, his family structure, hauled him back a thousand miles, and dumped him into a country where he didn’t know … where food and water was, didn’t know where shelter was, and then say, ‘Go forth and prosper.’”

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In the meantime, he said ranchers will continue to do what they have always done and protect their livestock the best they can.

“But now we’re supposed to do all this fencing and put up all this stuff, but yeah, we’re trying, we’re willing — but dang it, this is not, this shouldn’t be at our cost and our expense,” Linke said.

Polis said he signed a bill on Monday to put more resources into the hands of the Colorado Department of Agriculture and CPW to support resources in getting more deterrents.

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