This story by Chase Woodruff appeared on Colorado Newsline on November 22, 2024.
A nonprofit that advocates for the restoration of gray wolves in Colorado said this week that it will begin offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information on acts of illegal wolf poaching as the state moves forward with its voter-mandated reintroduction plans.
The announcement of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project’s anti-poaching reward comes after a year of tension between advocates, wildlife managers and ranchers over last winter’s release of the state’s first 10 reintroduced wolves, and just ahead of the arrival of another 10 to 15 animals in the state wildlife agency’s 2024-25 “release season.”
Hunting gray wolves, an endangered species, is illegal in most cases under federal and Colorado law, and a state anti-poaching program, Operation Game Thief, offers rewards of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest or citation of poachers.
But Courtney Vail, chair of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, said the group’s new reward, which is supported by pledges from a range of private donors and advocacy organizations, will “enhance incentives to bring perpetrators of crimes to justice.”
“While enforcement of, and imposition of penalties under, the law (i.e., fines, revocation of hunting privileges, or jail time) are probably the most effective deterrents to illegal activities, we believe that rewards may incentivize the public to ‘say something’ if they ‘see something’ regarding wolf poaching,” Vail said in a written statement. “By establishing and announcing the Wolf Reward, we hope to preempt those seeking to harm wolves as reintroduction unfolds and as wolves navigate their future among Colorado’s public and private landscapes.”
It’s been a turbulent first year for Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program, which is mandated by a statewide ballot measure, Proposition 114, narrowly approved by voters in 2020. The state’s first established wolf pack following reintroduction — consisting of a male and a female who were among the first 10 wolves released in Grand and Summit counties in December 2023, and their four pups — was rounded up by Colorado Parks and Wildlife agents in August after a series of livestock depredations. A short time later, the pack’s adult male died in captivity of what officials said was a preexisting injury.
State and federal wildlife officials said earlier this month that a different reintroduced wolf found dead in Grand County in September had died in a fight with another wolf, but also disclosed that the animal had an “old, healed gunshot wound to its rear leg.” Since the reintroduced wolves, captured last year in Oregon, underwent health screenings at the time, CPW officials say the wolf was likely shot in Colorado.
The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project says measures like the anti-poaching reward are necessary to “preempt targeted violence towards wolves during the initial stages of the reintroduction process to support law enforcement efforts.”
The standing $50,000 incentive will be awarded for “information leading to formal charges against anyone who illegally kills a wolf in Colorado,” the group says, and it will work in conjunction with the state’s existing anti-poaching tip hotline.
Gray wolves are native to Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states, but were hunted to near-extinction by settlers and ranchers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Conservationists and ecologists have backed reintroduction efforts like the one pioneered in Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s, while ranching and hunting interests have fueled a new backlash to reestablished wolf populations.
A formal reintroduction plan approved by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission last year calls for the capture and release of 10 to 15 wolves per year in the program’s first three to five years, with an initial target of a stable population of at least 50 animals within the state. Under Proposition 114, ranchers who lose livestock to confirmed wolf depredations are eligible for compensation from the state, while the federal government has granted a special exemption to the Endangered Species Act that allows for lethal control, as well as “injurious nonlethal” methods and “intentional harassment,” against wolves who threaten livestock.
Ranchers have formally petitioned CPW commissioners to delay the second round of wolf releases scheduled for this winter. CPW announced in September that the agency had reached an agreement with wildlife officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia to capture up to 15 gray wolves there and release them in Colorado between December and March.