While people can no longer afford dogs in Colorado and overwhelm the Denver pound at a drop-off rate more than double since 2019, Rewilding Karens celebrate the seizure, importation and rural dumping of gray wolves at a devastating death toll of eight from the original imported 25, or 32%. This practice should be immediately halted, as it is not only unethical but more criminal in line with the state’s wildlife trafficking law. Yet, Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) has gone on record with the excuse, “wolf survival is often lower for dispersing, non-territorial wolves,” a statement synonymous with the dumpster fire meme, “This is fine.”
Now is the time for Coloradans to apply first aid to this man-made disaster and stop the bleeding that includes losses suffered in livestock from wolf kills and wolf presence (stress-driven pregnancy losses). Every Coloradan should support Initiative 13 to end wolf importation so that wildlife management replaces ongoing experimentation.
By law, Ballot Initiative 13 effectively ends dumping wild canines into conflict with humans far away from their native habitat in British Columbia. “Rewilding” Colorado into a nature sanctuary by bureaucracy ignores the simple fact that wolves are already in Colorado, and they do not need overpaid progressives mesmerized by Captain Planet cartoons to throw them into forest, rangeland, and urban-suburban-rural ecologies populated by over 6 million people. Initiative 13 also prevents the Division of Natural Resources (DNR) from moving the goal posts on their wolf experiment. No government bureaucracy ever reduced itself unless the people made it law or replaced the clown show via revolution.
Furthermore, Initiative 13 is the parent putting its foot down on CPW environmental truancy. The Memorial Day massacre of livestock at three Pitkin County ranches was human caused by CPW. Their own wolf management plan specified not to re-release chronically depredating wolves (livestock killers), saying the strategy risked “translocating the problem along with the wolves.” Yet, pro-predators in CPW violated their own science-based promise not to re-release, causing the destruction to take place. Can DNR and CPW be trusted? Nope, because these state agencies ideologically view wolf reintroduction as an ongoing experiment that should be perpetually funded by taxpayers, not a public endeavor requiring the public’s trust. This is why Initiative 13 is needed.
A big contributor to this snafu isn’t only the deep-pocketed environmentalists who directly influenced the disastrous CPW plan, believing collared wolves can read PowerPoint bio-diversity corridor maps. The snafu has also been caused by association leaders who claim they represent agriculture but demonstrate short-sighted ineffectiveness and long-term preference to survive as the “primary stakeholders,” and that stopping further wolf importation via Ballot Initiative 13 would somehow be, in their own words, “a risk to landowners.”
First and foremost, the taxpayers are the primary stakeholders, footing the bill on compensation packages both too much for them to bear and too little to adequately address the economic losses for ranchers. With only a fraction of CPW’s planned wolves on the ground, compensation claims were 153%—far off what was budgeted by Colorado. To put this in perspective, no government program has been as disastrous since Cash for Clunkers, which destroyed 700,000 running used vehicles and drove the average price of a car off a cliff, from $22,635 to $49,292.
Initiative 13 is needed because perpetual compensation will continue to drive the wedge between local beef producers and Colorado taxpayers, who pay for wolf compensation and beef consumption at high costs. Proposition 114, which narrowly passed wolf reintroduction mainly by young, urban voters, revealed the fundamental problem: beef industry leaders, lobbyists and staffs do not know how to communicate with millennials & Gen Z Coloradans. Four years later, they still don’t.
Finally, the “risk to landowners” arguments are about as American as an American can get. Unlike today’s Colorado leaders, the Founding Fathers, the greatest landowners of them all, risked (and many lost) everything they had so that their neighbors and future citizens could be socially and economically mobile to “pursue happiness.” In doing so, their exemplary leadership and the dangers they faced made the term “risk” an essential part of what defines American character and the West. Even radicalized students indoctrinated by Marxist curriculum are forced to acknowledge the willingness of the Founding Fathers to prioritize independence and opportunity over materialism.
Some people have spent their entire professional careers screwing up Colorado, whether they be so-called leaders in bureaucratic agencies, biological sciences or the beef industry. This wolf disaster is more than just an example of those who lacked the managerial will, skill and strategic vision to properly captain their professions, fields and industries over the last five years. It has resulted in a culture of appeasement based on ideology and weak coalition responses that ultimately harmed the citizens of Colorado—a once independent, thriving state of strongmen and women less than a decade ago. We can continue this course that bleeds out Colorado or stop the bleeding by ending further wolf importation. We ask you to not only take charge as a citizen, but also to sign and support Ballot Initiative 13. — Dr. Chuck Duray, EdD, retired Lt. Colonel, Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy
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