A wolf advocate and a Colorado cattle rancher who has lost several cows to wolves walk side by side against the picturesque backdrop of the northern Colorado mountains.
In the minidocumentary produced by a national nonprofit working to overcome “extreme political and cultural division in America,” ecologist Karin Vardaman and Walden rancher Don Gittleson speak of common ground and ways that wolves and cattle ranchers can peacefully coexist.
It’s touching and hopeful. Too bad it’s not the whole story.
In reality, the long-time rancher, whose cattle operation near Walden has been ground zero in Colorado’s wolf debate, and the well-known wolf advocate are no longer on good terms.
Vardaman is the executive director of Working Circle, a group formed with California and Oregon ranchers in 2016 to protect cattle from wolves and help ranchers develop long-term strategies to reduce livestock depredation by large carnivores. The group provided Gittleson with a nighttime range rider last spring after wolves that migrated across the Wyoming state line attacked his cows.
That partnership started off well, and things were good when the minidocumentary from the group Starts With Us was filmed. Gittleson helped Vardaman with her horse and spent many days working with her on the ranch.
But after a few months, that partnership began to deteriorate.
Three calves were killed on three separate nights and the night riders on duty didn’t even know it, Gittleson told The Sun. “The only reason people were riding around was to see a wolf, and if you see a wolf, you are not doing your job.”...MORE
Then came the videos Vardaman accidentally left behind when she loaned Gittleson her game cameras last spring.
He was furious to see old video of Vardaman putting drops of lure, a pungent liquid made of animal glands, on a rock to entice wolves...
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