Using Wolves as Scapegoats Fails Again in Colorado

Anti-wolf organizers couldn’t muster the signatures to overturn voter-approved wolf reintroduction, for good reason.

Photo by Federico Di Dio photography on Unsplash

Opponents of wolf reintroduction in Colorado just failed in their latest attempt to turn back the clock. The group Coloradans for Smart Wolf Policy admitted last month that they fell far short of the 125,000 signatures needed to qualify a repeal measure for the 2026 ballot, collecting only about 25,000.

It was a setback for the livestock industry and its political allies, who continue to paint wolves as an existential threat to rural Colorado. The rhetoric is fierce but the numbers tell a different story. Since wolves were first reintroduced in 2023, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has documented the loss of just 34 cows out of more than 2.5 million cattle raised in the state every year — nearly all of which will end up in slaughterhouses and not on the landscape. Far more cattle are lost annually to weather, disease, and even domestic dogs. As Ryan Sedgeley of the Endangered Species Coalition told Public News Service, “Domestic dogs kill twice as many cattle as wolves do.”

Colorado has bent over backward to cushion ranchers from the potential impacts of reintroduction. The state’s Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund pays full market value up to $15,000 for any livestock lost to wolves — not just verified kills, but also for missing animals, reduced conception rates, and other indirect claims. That makes Colorado’s program one of the most generous in the nation. Already, millions of dollars have been earmarked to support ranchers, including nearly $1 million raised through “Born to be Wild” license plates that fund range riders and non-lethal deterrents. In effect, taxpayers and wildlife advocates are footing the bill to ensure that ranching continues with minimal disruption while wolves return to their rightful place on the landscape.

This level of protection goes far beyond what most industries ever receive when faced with ecological change. Few businesses are ever compensated for market downturns or environmental restrictions. But ranching — often wrapped in myth and sentiment — is a heavily-subsidized industry with a powerful grip on western politics. Despite the romantic imagery, it is agribusiness, and it demands endless payouts and policy exemptions while railing against a handful of native carnivores that voters chose to restore.

Livestock industry-backed groups have filed petitions, lobbied legislators, filed lawsuits, and mounted campaigns to pause or repeal Colorado’s wolf reintroduction. A bipartisan bloc of lawmakers even tried to hijack this summer’s emergency session to strip funding from the program, but their effort collapsed in negotiations with Gov. Jared Polis. Despite these maneuvers, wolves are back. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has already released 25 animals across Grand, Summit, Pitkin, and Eagle counties, and more are slated for release this winter. Packs are forming, pups are on the ground, and wolves are beginning to restore ecological balance to a state that has been without them for nearly a century.

The conflict over wolves is not just about carnivores and cattle. It is about which human values shape the future of Colorado’s landscapes: the public that voted for restoration, or the livestock industry that insists its profits come first. That industry already exacts an enormous toll. Across the West, 56 million acres of BLM-managed lands are failing to meet land health standards, and in 76 percent of those cases livestock grazing is the cause. Add to that the millions of dollars in direct subsidies, the generous state-level compensation programs, and the constant political pressure to gut protections for other species — from grizzlies in Montana to sage grouse in Idaho — and the pattern is impossible to miss.

For now, the public’s will is holding. Anti-wolf organizers couldn’t muster the signatures to challenge Proposition 114. The state is moving forward with additional reintroduction efforts. And wolves, against long odds, are finding their way back.

The real crisis here isn’t wolves. It’s an industry that demands endless subsidies, outsized political power, and a predator-free landscape — all at public expense.

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Grace Kuhn is the digital director for Western Watersheds Project. grace@westernwatersheds.org