{"id":21110,"date":"2020-01-24T09:20:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=62659"},"modified":"2020-01-24T09:20:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T16:20:52","slug":"eagle-county-ranchers-wolf-reintroduction-is-a-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/eagle-county-ranchers-wolf-reintroduction-is-a-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagle County ranchers: Wolf reintroduction is a bad idea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A trail of wolf tracks observed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers Sunday in Northwest Colorado.<\/strong>
Courtesy CPW<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

EAGLE COUNTY \u2014 Wolves were a problem for ranchers when Kip Gates\u2019 great-great-grandfather homesteaded in the area. He doesn\u2019t want the problem to return.<\/p>\n

Local ranchers say they\u2019re concerned about a November ballot question<\/a> asking voters to approve restoring wolves to western Colorado.<\/p>\n

Gates, part of a longtime area family, has a ranch on Derby Mesa in northwestern Eagle County. That operation includes cattle and horses. In the fall, the ranch opens to hunters willing to pay to hunt deer and elk on private land.<\/p>\n

Wolves are a threat to every part of that operation, Gates said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hits my livelihood,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n

Gates said he and other ranchers are used to dealing with predators. Colorado Parks and Wildlife will allow limited hunts for mountain lions if those animals become a problem for ranchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can try to keep those numbers down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A concern for town residents<\/h2>\n

Lloyd Gerard\u2019s family has long ranched up Gypsum Creek south of Gypsum. The operation runs cattle on large public land permit areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the public ought to be worried as much as me,\u201d Gerard said. He noted the decline in deer and elk populations in Eagle County, and worried that wolves might start preying on livestock and other domestic animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no mule deer anywhere, and this was a trophy area a few years ago,\u201d Gerard said. Given that wolves will eat what they can catch and kill, that means livestock will be in danger.<\/p>\n

Gerard noted the irony of letting state voters \u2014 the vast majority of whom are on the Front Range \u2014 making wildlife decisions for the Western Slope.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve outlawed pit bulls in Denver, and they want to bring the wolf back here,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing about it that makes a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dillon and Samantha Kujala run about 500 cow\/calf pairs on Derby Mesa. Samantha Kujala said she believes the agricultural community is just about universally opposed to wolf reintroduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Colorado already has a predator issue with mountain lions, bears and coyotes,\u201d Kujala said. And, she added, the studies she\u2019s seen from Colorado Parks and Wildlife indicate the state doesn\u2019t have the wildlife to support the introduction of another predator.<\/p>\n

When predators don\u2019t have natural prey in their habitats, they turn to what\u2019s available. If that\u2019s a cow with a calf, it can be a big loss for a rancher.<\/p>\n

Any loss is \u2018devastating\u2019<\/h3>\n

\u201cAny kind of death loss is devastating,\u201d Kujala said. Livestock gets stressed the same way prey animals do when there are predators in the area, Kujala said. Like wildlife, stress affects breeding success with livestock, she said. And livestock animals under stress don\u2019t gain weight the way they should.<\/p>\n

While Colorado Parks and Wildlife reimburses ranchers for predator losses \u2014 and loss reimbursement is part of the ballot issue \u2014 Kujala noted that much of that agency\u2019s revenue comes from the sale of hunting licenses. Further depletion of the state\u2019s wildlife populations could lead to fewer licenses being sold, and less revenue available for operations, she said. That means taxpayers could be responsible for paying for predation losses.<\/p>\n

None of the ranchers interviewed for this story is anti-wolf. But all said Colorado isn\u2019t the right place for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn states with wolves, the population isn\u2019t close to Colorado\u2019s,\u201d Kujala said, adding that development has taken much of the winter range for deer, elk and other species.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the fact that a small group of wolves<\/a> has already wandered into the northwest part of the state. Introducing more wolves will create a conflict between packs, Kujala said.<\/p>\n

If wolves return to the state in any numbers, Gerard said he\u2019s worried about the future of agriculture in western Colorado.<\/p>\n

Ranching\u2019s been good to me in Eagle County,\u201d Gerard said. \u201cThat may be coming to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n

And given the way wolves wander, Gates wonders where packs will travel if given the chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get (wolves) back down here, you\u2019ll never control them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A trail of wolf tracks observed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers Sunday in Northwest Colorado.Courtesy CPW EAGLE COUNTY \u2014 Wolves were a problem for ranchers when Kip Gates\u2019 great-great-grandfather homesteaded in the area. He doesn\u2019t want the problem to return. Local ranchers say they\u2019re concerned about a November ballot question asking voters to approve restoring wolves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 17:06:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}