On Sept. 26, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Department of Agriculture held the first of several meetings intended to educate ranchers and producers about conflict reduction in the counties where wolves have killed dozens of livestock.

But the meetings were a “no-go” for ranchers – no one showed up. The Jackson County family hardest hit by wolves said they were never contacted.

The meeting took place Thursday at the Wattenberg Center in Walden, Jackson County. CPW and CDA staff, personnel from Colorado State University Extension, and two reporters attended.

According to a handout at the meeting, the goal was to educate ranchers on “non-lethal wolf conflict reduction training.” That included discussions of relationship-building and communications.

However, neither CPW nor CDA officially announced the meetings.

Kim Gittleson and her husband, Don, have lost more than a dozen livestock and working dogs to wolves that came down from Wyoming several years ago. “It appears they forgot to tell the ranchers,” Kim Gittleson said Thursday on a Facebook page for Steamboat Radio. “We were not aware of it, and several others I spoke to were not aware. Maybe the lack of effort was on the presenters for not making sure the ranchers knew about it.”

The meeting was also intended to educate the ranchers and producers on “Wolf 101,” including scat, tracking, and patterns, carcass management, range riding, and how to properly haze a predator; fladry (flags), fox-lights, and other “scare” devices; livestock protection dogs; and the possibility of drone use.

Olga Robak, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, said they contacted producer organizations in Jackson County and worked with CPW, USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services, and CSU Extension to directly contact producers.

“We received a handful of confirmations from producers, but none showed up to the Jackson County meeting on Thursday,” Robak told Colorado Politics. “We had seven producers present at Friday’s meeting in Grand County. Additionally, CDA staff has been speaking directly with several producer organizations in northwest Colorado about grant funding as well as these meetings.”

Several ranchers who spoke to Colorado Politics about the training in Jackson and Grand counties called them a waste of time. Several also called the information, which was intended to teach ranchers about low-stress cattle handling, “insulting” since that is already a standard in cattle management.

However, the training also raised concerns about just what CPW intends to do next.

According to Shannon Lukens of Steamboat Radio, one of two reporters in attendance, Dustin Shiflett, CDA Nonlethal Conflict Reduction Program Manager, said, “We’re trying to target where wolves will be reintroduced next.”

He identified upcoming meetings for Grand, Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield, and Gunnison counties and, to the south, Gunnison County. CDA’s website identifies two meetings in October in Routt and Moffat counties, but none are listed for Garfield, Rio Blanco, or Gunnison.

Robak told Colorado Politics they are planning meetings for Gunnison in December. “We are setting these meetings throughout Colorado in areas where wolves are already present and where wolves may be in the future. Our goal is to be proactive in helping ranchers and stockgrowers anywhere in Colorado to prepare for coexistence with wolves,” she said.

Andy Spann, who heads the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association, says his group is “very watchful on what’s going on in the other areas” and believes the training is a good way to keep them informed.

Travis Duncan, a CPW spokesman, denied that wolves will be relocated to Gunnison County in the next year. However, CPW’s poor track record on informing ranchers, landowners, and local elected officials about wolf relocations is already raising eyebrows for ranchers in Gunnison County, which, according to the wolf plan, is in the southern region.

That could also raise issues for the state’s two federally listed tribes, which are adamantly opposed to gray wolves entering their tribal lands.

The tribes’ opposition to gray wolves and CPW’s failure to communicate with them led the Confederated* Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State to cancel an agreement to give Colorado wolves from that state for the next round of reintroductions.

CPW had to go international, securing an agreement for wolves with British Columbia, where wolves are decimating caribou herds.

In a 2023 letter to CPW, Southern Ute Chairman Melvin Baker wrote that “limiting releases to the northern zone will also initially buffer tribes in New Mexico like the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Navajo Nation, and northern Pueblos of New Mexico from dispersing gray wolves. The additional buffer may also protect the genetically distinct Mexican gray wolf from contact with northern gray wolves, which could have consequences ranging from conspecific predation to interbreeding. The Tribe requests that CPW revise the Plan by limiting gray wolf releases to the northern release zone.” Gray wolves present an “unacceptable risk” to the tribe’s hunting resources, Baker wrote.

CPW did not modify the plan to keep gray wolves out of the southern region, as Baker requested.

Baker also pointed out that as a sovereign with reservation lands set aside for its exclusive use and with reserved hunting and gathering rights established within the Brunot Area, “we feel strongly that the Tribe should be regularly updated on the status of gray wolves in the state. The update should include detailed information on the location and date of each wolf release, how many wolves were released, and the age and sex of the animals.”

The Ute Mountain Utes also have concerns about wolves in Gunnison County. While the reservation is in Colorado’s furthest southwestern region, the tribe owns a 10,000-acre ranch in Gunnison County, near Blue Mesa Reservoir, where it raises cattle.

David Stoner, the manager for natural resources (including livestock) for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, told Colorado Politics he had not heard about upcoming meetings on wolf conflict reduction. The tribe’s Pinecrest ranch in Gunnison County is its largest and the furthest away from its headquarters in Towaoc, in Montezuma County. They also have a cattle ranch in Montezuma County, four in La Plata County, and another in San Juan County, Utah.

Editor’s note: formal name of the Washington state tribes corrected.