Crying wolf, or cause for alarm? (Colorado ballot)

Whether a wolf evokes terror, admiration or curiosity, advocates for the animal are focusing on a single question: Can humans and wolves co-exist in Colorado? High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA) in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project hosted a panel discussion this past Friday that revisited the controversial conversation of wolves in the Western United States. However, this time around, wolf advocates are taking the question to the ballot rather than federal and state wildlife managers — with hopes of Colorado voters welcoming the animal. “Colorado is the gap,” said ecologist Delia Malone of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. “We not only need wolves ecologically, but wolves need Colorado to restore connectivity between the population in the Northern Rockies and the populations in New Mexico and Arizona.” Few issues are as controversial as Canis Lupus, or the gray wolf, in North America. Often hated by hunters who lament sharing the landscape’s prey with another worthy predator and ranchers who fear losing livestock, the wolf has remained in the line of fire for decades as debate over the animal’s presence continues to create a cultural divide. The ballot proposal submitted last week — known as Initiative 79 — asks voters to approve a law requiring the Colorado Wildlife Commission to craft a plan to re-introduce gray wolves on public lands west of the Continental Divide by the end of 2023. The question would be put to voters in the November 2020 election.