This is an appeal to our neighbors in the Canadian province of British Columbia: Please do not donate wolves to Colorado. We speak to you as a diverse editorial board composed of Colorado natives and longtime residents who care deeply about wildlife and Colorado’s wilderness.

Our friends at Colorado Parks and Wildlife approached their peers at the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship to ask for wolves after exhausting most other options. They did so because voters ordered them to, not because this benefits wolves and the people of Colorado.

Because most urban voters don’t understand wolves or wolf habitat, they gave our state Parks and Wildlife officials a mandate that doesn’t work.

This program was never advocated by Colorado’s leading wildlife experts. Coloradans call the reintroduction dilemma a product of ballot-box biology — in which whimsical majority sentiment replaces scientific analysis, professional planning and subsequent action.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

Predictably, the aggressive reintroduction program has been disruptive — for humans, livestock and wolves. Already, since the initial reintroduction of 10 wolves late last year, three have been confirmed dead. Those surviving are in danger, as they have killed dozens of cattle, at least a dozen sheep and several dogs. As the state introduces more wolves, conflicts will increase.

By declining to donate wolves, British Columbian officials would join good company. No state in our country will donate wolves to Colorado, knowing this program does more harm than good. Native American tribes are declining to provide wolves because of concerns about unsuitable habitats, conflicts between state officials and private landowners and poor communication among state and tribal leaders.

For better or worse, hundreds of thousands of people have settled throughout the Western Slope of Colorado since the time wolves roamed there naturally. The region’s population is increasing, along with development of housing, retail and hospitality ventures.

What used to be an American wilderness has become the location of glitzy resorts, airports, busy highways and boomtowns with sprawling new neighborhoods. It is no longer a suitable environment for wolves, especially when they are set loose without a viable plan to mitigate predation on livestock, other wildlife and pets.

Colorado’s reintroduction has driven a wedge between state wildlife officials and Colorado’s farmers and ranchers. Public-private partnerships are an essential component of preserving wildlife and wildlife habitat. As wolf reintroduction proceeds, those partnerships disintegrate.

Growing hostility toward wayward wolves has farmers and ranchers — fed up with the emotional and financial costs of losing livestock and pets — openly talking about poaching them. Down here, it’s called “shoot, shovel and shut up” — the last resort of desperation.

British Columbian officials are unlikely to hear these concerns from Colorado state wildlife officials. That’s because this particular wolf reintroduction program is entirely political, and state agencies are statutorily apolitical.

We are confident the scientists and other experts of British Columbia’s Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship have the best of intentions when cooperating with their colleagues in our state’s Parks and Wildlife agency. So, we’ll say what they cannot: British Columbia would do them a favor by politely declining to participate at this time.

Urban voters of Denver, Boulder and other Front Range cities imposed this program as if wolves are props for tourists. These beautiful, powerful and intelligent creatures deserve to live where they can thrive. They don’t deserve the danger they face throughout Colorado’s Western Slope.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board