Colorado wildlife officials plan to capture between 30 and 50 gray wolves from other states in the northern Rocky Mountain region over the next three to five years and release them into the state’s Western Slope forests, according to a draft plan published Friday.
Those wolves are meant to act as a seed that will hopefully grow into a self-sustaining population, restoring the species to at least a fraction of its former glory after it was hunted to extinction in Colorado a century ago.
The reintroduction effort is mandated by Proposition 114, which voters narrowly approved in 2020, and which has in the years since pitted rural Western Slope communities against the far more urban Front Range.
Since the vote two years ago Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials have studied how best to reintroduce the predators and manage their packs in perpetuity. Their draft plan is the culmination of that work so far, CPW Commission Chair Carrie Besnette Hauser said Friday morning. It will also likely be changed in the months to come as the agency hosts public comment sessions ahead of a final vote scheduled for early May.
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