Federal wildlife officials recently informed their Colorado counterparts their wolf “restoration” violates federal endangered species law. It was a setback for the controversial effort. Now, the reintroduction has been dealt another blow, this time from Washington state.

After a public-comment session drew public outcry from that state’s wolf advocates last week, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted 8-1 to reject Colorado’s request for wolves.

Opponents of relocating Washington wolves expressed fears Colorado would diminish an already-endangered population. Wolves in the state experienced a 25% decline in breeding pairs in the past year. Washington 

Wildlife First’s Francisco Santiago-Ávila further lambasted Colorado’s reintroduction as “ill-conceived” and “failing on its own terms” ever since it was implemented in a 2020 ballot measure. The proposal passed by the hair on its chinny chin chin, with just 50.91% approval (almost entirely from unaffected Front Range voters). It actually lost in 51 out of 64 Colorado counties, including all but four Western Slope counties. 

Colorado, Santiago-Ávila added, is not caring for the wolves it has now, “yet (has) the audacity to ask for more” without exhausting all other alternatives.

The rejection — led by wolf advocates — ought to humble Gov. Jared Polis and other activists at the forefront of Colorado’s reckless reintroduction misadventure. It is undermining the Western Slope ranch community by killing its cattle — its livelihood and our dinner — and undermining the wolves themselves. 

At least 12 of Colorado’s wolves have died since reintroduction started in 2023.

Washington’s Santiago-Ávila sounds an awful lot like Colorado’s ranchers in his diagnosis of what the reintroduction reformers are doing despite clear collateral damage: doubling-down indefinitely on a bad idea and disregarding evidence to the contrary. Per Santiago-Ávila, Colorado’s response to the feds wasn’t to challenge them, but to “pass the burden onto another state’s endangered wolves.”

It was “a choice as convenient as it is questionable,” he added. 

Santiago-Ávila contended what statistics support: “translocated wolves fare worse.”

It’s not just wolf advocates like Santiago-Ávila. Washington’s Confederated Tribes of the Colville Nation rescinded a 2024 agreement to send wolves to Colorado “due to concerns that Colorado Parks and Wildlife had not done its due diligence with the Southern Ute tribe.” 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s director, Jeff Davis, hails from Washington, where he served until two years ago for two decades in the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. So, his home state’s rejection must have gotten his attention. To no avail, he blamed politics for the federal finding against Colorado’s program.

”You’ve heard the Colorado wolf program is failing. You’ve heard statements about how Colorado is shooting their wolves,” Davis acknowledged, suggesting the effort was getting bad press.

Deservedly so.

Some of the most compelling testimony against Colorado’s request for Washington’s wolves came from a Coloradan, as reported by our news affiliate Colorado Politics. 

Colorado GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez told Washington commissioners that the survival rate for gray wolves in Colorado is “alarmingly low. It’s not something anyone should be proud of.” 

Based on the history of deaths for the wolves brought from Oregon and British Columbia, Lopez said, if 15 wolves were brought to Colorado from Washington, five of them, at a minimum, could be expected to die. 

Lopez added, “It is in effect a death sentence for wolves who have shown no misbehavior and committed no offense.” 

— The Gazette Editorial Board