It has been a long 18 months of volunteer work on the Wolf Stakeholders Advisory Group. Each of the members faced terribly difficult compromises in developing our collective recommendations to Colorado Parks & Wildlife. Now our recommendations are in the hands of the CPW Commission, and there are a few things they should understand.

Decisions around wolves are always mired in politics, and our experience was no different. We faced relentless political interference from the Polis administration as they pushed their desired outcome. As they pressed their thumb on the scale, I witnessed the morale of my former colleagues at CPW collapse as science was pushed aside and replaced with ideology.

In my 40 years of work on conservation, including serving as a Democratic member of the CPW Commission and two years as chair, I have never seen this level of political interference at the expense of sound wildlife management. CPW’s 100-year record of success in restoring wildlife in Colorado is being suppressed in service of an animal-rights agenda that has failed everywhere it has been tried from Europe to Botswana and most recently in New Jersey.

Even before CPW released its plan, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians attacked it publicly, while offering an alternative plan of their own. I’ll leave it to the public to determine the agenda of these organizations, but suffice it to say that their alternative plan doesn’t bring the support of professional wildlife managers and biologists.

And now former U.S. Sen. Mark Udall has released a misleading polemic. Instead of testifying to the Stakeholders Advisory Group or the commission, he chose to muddy a process designed to lower the temperature and proceed in the Washington (D.C.) way, not the Colorado way.

In my time on the stakeholders group, no evidence was presented that indicates wolves in fact reduce Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in deer and elk, and you won’t find a credible peer-reviewed study that concludes it either. All of these efforts are intended to restrict the management proscriptions that are to be available to CPW to properly manage wolves in the future along with the host of other wildlife populations in the state.

The National Wildlife Federation compiled analysis of other Western state agency recommendations to Colorado, and this particular recommendation is of significance:

“Essentially, all professional wolf biologists and managers interviewed for this report stated that some form of wolf harvest will be a critical future management tool in Colorado, only after wolf populations meet specific recovery criteria. It is recommended that the Commission, agency and stakeholders discuss potential for post-recovery wolf harvest early on in the planning process, even though any potential harvest may be a long time in the future and ultimately may remove very few wolves.”

Unfortunately, because of political interference, we were prohibited from heeding such scientific advice, as such discussion of ongoing management needs of wolves were prohibited from occurring. As a result, we are presenting an incomplete plan to the commission for consideration. It will not serve us or the wolves well in the future.

In 1900, there was virtually no elk or deer in Colorado. All predators were treated as varmints, poisoned by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Agency and hunted on bounties. Such forms of market hunting are rightfully perceived as despicable. Luckily, a modern sportsmen ethic emerged, accompanied by new wildlife management laws and practices that became known as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. It is the current practice of wildlife management in all 50 states, and it is responsible for the recovery of nearly all big-game species in America today.

Now, we have the largest elk herd in the world. CPW restored deer, brought moose to a climate change-survivable climate, introduced mountain goats, lynx and expanded the depleted range of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep. There are now approximately 4,000 to 4,500 mountain lions in Colorado and over 10,000 bears and both populations are growing.

That is the future for wolves in Colorado if CPW is allowed to do what it does best.

I support the CPW Wolf plan without reservation. It is unfortunately not as good a product as it could have been. But the changes advocated by former Sen. Udall and others, would make it useless and start us down the road to the failed introductions in Idaho and Montana. And if the introduction here is to succeed, the political interference in science and professional wildlife management must stop.

John Howard, of Grand Junction, is former chair of the Colorado Parks & Wildlife Commission.