At what point will livestock owners accept the fact that wolves are coming to Colorado?

They can be distressed and disappointed about it, but their dilatory tactics won’t stop the inevitable. That’s not how the law works.

Colorado voters said they want wolves reintroduced into the state. It doesn’t matter how close the 2020 vote was or that Front Range voters carried the vote over the common-sense objections of rural communities.

Count the Sentinel’s editorial board among detractors of any “biology by ballot” initiative. But the will of the voters cannot be circumvented, no matter how knuckleheaded it is.

In 2022, gray wolves attacked domesticated animals hundreds of times across 10 states in the contiguous U.S. including Colorado, according to an Associated Press review of depredation data from state and federal agencies. “Attacks killed or injured at least 425 cattle and calves, 313 sheep and lambs, 40 dogs, 10 chickens, five horses and four goats,” according to the AP’s data analysis. Those numbers don’t include animals that simply disappear.

As the Sentinel’s Dennis Webb reported, the wolf reintroduction plan includes measures to reimburse livestock owners for the loss of livestock to wolves, along with assistance regarding nonlethal means of deterring wolf attacks, such as through the use of devices to scare them away from domestic animals. The plan also allows for killing wolves in some circumstances such as attacks on livestock, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently finalized a 10(j) rule authorizing such killings despite the gray wolf being federally listed for protection in states including Colorado under the Endangered Species Act. The rule also provides other flexibility to Colorado Parks and Wildlife to carry out its plan while complying with the federal law.

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Livestock owners and some state lawmakers were adamant that CPW’s reintroduction timeline should not move forward until the USFWS issued a 10(j) rule. The federal agency did that well ahead of CPW’s intention to release Oregon-sourced wolves into the state by the end of this month in accordance with the 2020 ballot language.

But on Tuesday, two livestock groups filed a last-minute lawsuit to try to delay the release to allow for what they say is a legally required review of its potential impacts.

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, naming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife as defendants.

In our view, this is a hair-splitting maneuver. The USFSW performed an environmental review in its 10(j) rulemaking. But the lawsuit targets an agreement between CPW and FWS that’s been in place since 1976. The stockgrowers contend the renewal of this agreement authorizes the wolf release and needs its own environmental analysis.

Never mind that the concerns of ranchers and livestock owners have been central to the reintroduction plan for the three years since the ballot measure passed.

And those animal losses that the AP compiled? While they’re devastating to individual ranchers or pet owners, the number of cattle killed or injured in the documented cases equals 0.002% of herds in the affected states, according to a comparison of depredation data with state livestock inventories.

“We look forward to the courts quickly seeing through this sour-grapes attempt, and to Colorado having wolves on the ground before the end of the year.” said Delaney Rudy, Colorado director with Western Watersheds Project.

Whether it’s that simple is a lawyer’s best guess. The lawsuit might stall the reintroduction of wolves, but it won’t stop it.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Editorial Board

Read the original article here.