When Coloradans narrowly voted to reintroduce wolves in 2020, they were told it would restore Colorado’s natural balance and bring back an endangered species that belonged here.

But the people who brought you the wolf in an effort to “restore” a species may be violating the very federal act that’s supposed to protect endangered species — and that provides Colorado with the basis for reintroducing wolves.

Our state’s voters approved reintroduction by the slimmest of margins in 2020. Since then, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has relocated 25 wolves so far, including 15 from Canada. The plan is to import 10 to 15 more this winter under a contract with British Columbia.

But there’s a problem with those plans.

In most states, gray wolves are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Only six Northern Rocky Mountain states — Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah — are allowed to manage their wolf populations without federal restrictions. Colorado isn’t one of them. And the federal act doesn’t permit importing wolves from either Canada or Alaska. 

Now, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has thrown a flag on the play.

As The Gazette reported last week, an Oct. 10 letter from Director Brian Nesvik informed Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis that Colorado’s wolf program violates federal law.

Nesvik cited the 10(j) rule, noting “USFWS authorized the state to release and establish gray wolves in Colorado as an experimental population ‘subject to Service oversight.’” But under that rule, he said, Colorado may only reintroduce wolves from the NRM region in the lower 48 states.

The Endangered Species Act bars any person from importing “any (endangered) species into… the United States” without a federal permit.

Colorado never obtained a permit, and Nesvik ordered the state to “immediately cease and desist” from pursuing Canadian or Alaskan wolf imports.

On Oct. 20, a coalition led by former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez, a candidate for governor, hand-delivered a detailed letter seeking documentation on permits and authorizations issued by USFWS to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for the importation of the Canadian wolves earlier this year. 

Lopez’s coalition includes several livestock and wildlife organizations, the Colorado Outfitters Association and the Colorado Conservation Alliance — groups directly impacted by wolves. Their goal, as The Gazette’s news report summed up, was to “ensure transparency and legal compliance in the international translocation of federally listed species.”

While the 10(j) rule provides flexibility to manage “experimental populations” like the gray wolf, the letter argued, it doesn’t override the Endangered Species Act.

The alleged violation isn’t just a legal lapse. The ecological impact is already showing.

On the Western Slope, elk and deer are already changing behavior — dropping out of the high country earlier and lingering near ranches longer than before. That’s what happens when 25 apex predators are dropped in without meaningful livestock protections or ecological forethought.

For many months, groups like Club 20 and the Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado have warned officials that Colorado was charging ahead recklessly — ignoring ranchers, science and rural areas.

And unlike the delisted states, where hundreds of wolves are legally killed each year to manage populations, Colorado ranchers cannot kill a wolf unless it’s attacking a human.

For a state that prides itself on environmental stewardship, this isn’t smart conservation. It’s negligence — and now, an apparent violation of the very federal law designed for endangered species.