You may have heard the great news: Colorado has its first officially documented wild wolf pups in more than eight decades. Six pups have been spotted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) agents. This is wonderful. And those pups now entering the wild world are clearly significant. But as I researched the birth, I realized that the pups are only one of several significant aspects of this event. Let’s look at some others.
The wolves that produced the premier pups are collared and designated as F1084 and M2101. The female, F1084 (pictured at top of post), has been living in northern Colorado near the Wyoming line since July of 2019. She dispersed from Wyoming’s Snake River pack near Yellowstone in search of a mate. Sometime last year, she somehow connected with a four-year old, 110-pound male in good health. In February of this year, CPW collared that male and gave him the number M2101. He was the first wolf ever collared by CPW, another significant detail of this birth.
An interesting side note to this historic event is that F1084 when she entered Colorado was known as M1084—“she” was considered a “he.” This was due to a clerical error when she was collared in 2017. So when CPW found another male accompanying M1084, officials considered the two males to be hunting partners.
But when data from M1084’s collar revealed what could be denning behavior—staying in one place for long periods of time—CPW agents figured there might be more than hunting going on. They contacted Wyoming Game & Fish Department and asked them to double check their records. Sure enough, a blood sample revealed M1084 was F1084.
The starting of a family by F1084 and M2101 was so significant it was covered by media across the US and even internationally. Kris Middledorf, area wildlife manager for CPW, said in a press release, “It’s incredible that these two adult animals have traveled the distance and overcome the challenges they have to get here, and to now have pups in Colorado,”
Distance and challenges indeed. Colorado has not been a safe destination for wolves. A handful of dispersers have reached the state but most have ended up dead: poisoned, hit by a car, shot illegally, or killed by a hunter who claimed he thought he shot a coyote. For F1084 to have survived in Colorado for two years is very significant.
That she actually reached Colorado from Wyoming is also significant. As I have written before, Wyoming’s wolf management plan amounts to creating a wolf prison in the northwest corner of the state on the public lands that surround Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Wyoming calls this prison its Wolf Trophy Game Management Area. Data from Wyoming Game & Fish Department (WGFD) reveals that almost every one of the state’s wolf packs roam within the trophy zone most or all of the time.
Trophy hunters need a license to kill in the zone and there are limits to how many wolves can be taken in the three-to-six-month long hunting season. If a wolf evades trophy hunters and disperses from the trophy zone, it then enters the 85% of the state where it can be shot on sight, anytime, anywhere, by anyone. No license needed. Wyoming calls this area surrounding the trophy zone its Predator Zone. In a recent year 24 wolves were reported killed in the Predator Zone. That’s just the number reported. I wouldn’t be surprised if others were shot and not reported. They are, after all, considered vermin in the Predator Zone.
Of course, F1084 couldn’t see prison walls designated by lines on a map when she felt compelled to disperse. She didn’t know she might go from being sought as a trophy to being slaughtered as vermin. She just knew that she had to go find a mate. And for reasons known only to her, she chose to head south toward Colorado.
As the map above shows, it’s only about 250 miles (not a long wolf journey) from the wolf prison to elk-filled northwestern Colorado where all of Colorado’s few confirmed wolf sightings have occurred. There are ample elk and deer to take along the way.
Somehow F1084 escaped the prison, survived the Predator Zone, and reached Colorado. Her journey and survival may be even more miraculous than that of Oregon’s famous wolf OR-7. He dispersed from northeastern Oregon to northern California. While on his longer journey, OR-7 was almost always protected by the Endangered Species Act. But F1084 had not a shred of protection in Wyoming’s Predator Zone.
Yet another significance of this first Colorado breeding pair is the home territory—Jackson County—the wolves chose. Most of Jackson County sits in a high basin surrounded by mountain ranges. The area has been known for wildlife. At one time many bison lived in the area and the basin was hunting ground for the Ute and Arapaho tribes. While the bison are now gone, elk and deer remain and will provide sustenance for a growing wolf family.
A while back, three scientists wrote a journal paper, “A Framework for Envisioning Gray Wolf Recovery.” The scientists, John Vucetich, Jeremy Bruskotter, and Michael Nelson, believe wolf recovery is feasible in the Lower 48. They calculate that wolves will recover best where fewer than 142 of us humans crowd each square kilometer. With only 1,394 people in 4,177 square kilometers, Jackson County has less than one person per square kilometer. That’s clearly good news. The potentially bad news is that a number of Jackson County residents are cattle ranchers, a group that typically does not like coexisting with wolves.
But like it or not, more wolves are coming to Colorado. Last year Colorado voters narrowly approved Proposition 114, which directs CPW to reintroduce wolves to the state by the end of 2023. The people who voted for wolf reintroduction mainly lived in the urban areas of the state. But people in the rural areas—areas like Jackson County—overwhelmingly voted against reintroduction.
Some of those voters against reintroduction are now claiming that these first pups are significant because their birth shows that Colorado does not need to reintroduce wolves; the animals will naturally repopulate the state. History proves them wrong.
When 66 wolves were reintroduced into the Rocky Mountains in Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995, conservationists hoped that those wolves and their descendants would create a healthy population that would in turn produce dispersers that repopulated the Rocky Mountains and the West.
That hope became reality—with the help of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Dispersers increased Montana’s wolf population. By 2008 dispersers of reintroduced wolves had created the first confirmed packs in Oregon and Washington. By 2020 dispersers had even made the long trek to California and created at least one pup-producing pack. Yet by 2020 dispersers had not formed a single breeding pair in Colorado, the only Rocky Mountain state still without a permanent wolf population.
If wolves can’t survive a natural journey to Colorado, they can be reintroduced. And protected. Wolves are an endangered species under Colorado law. Killing one can result in a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
Proposition 114 will bring more wolves to Colorado just about the time that Colorado’s premier pups are ready to breed, start their own packs, and help create a genetically healthy, self-sustaining wolf population. And that accomplishment will be incredibly significant.
Photo Credit: Colorado Wolf F1084 by Colorado Parks and Wildlife
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