Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioner Tai Jacober attended last week’s meeting virtually, explaining he’s calving, like many other ranchers in the state, me included.

“I have 20 or 30 calves born per day right now with not very much help, so I decided to stay home, particularly with the matter of the wolves, but as everybody knows this is a subject matter that is really important to me,” Jacober said.

The irony of that statement shouldn’t be overlooked or lost on anyone.

The latest wolf releases put wolves in Jacober’s area, so in addition to the challenges of calving, he’s now having to manage the real possibility of wolf presence.

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Public comment demonized the producers whose claims were unanimously approved, including $343,416 to two ranching operations for losses due to wolves. One claim, paid at the amount of $287,407 was submitted at about $400,000. CPW Regional Manager Travis Black said the remaining $112,000 for missing cattle is still being investigated and the agency and the ranch owners have requested additional time to work through the claim. There is also another $100,000 claim expected to be heard at an upcoming Commission meeting, though only $10,000 will remain in the fund to pay depredation compensation as per the law passed that required the release of wolves. The amount is high, but ranching is a business and at a certain scale, it’s a business that earns and spends millions. Emphasis, of course, on spends.

The public comment that followed was filled with vitriol and hate. Chair Dallas May, a rancher from southeastern Colorado, took to the pulpit and offered a levelheaded explanation of why protecting the wolf plan is essential. Pass the offertory, kids. May spoke from a place of earned experience and has my utmost respect.

“Prop 114- when it was put into law — C.R.S. 33-2-105.8, it’s very specific and words mean something,” May said. “When that ballot proposal — 114 — was put in front of the people, it was worded craftily in order to provide the most information to the public that it could. As Commissioner Haskett said, it stated in there that livestock producers would be compensated for losses. For losses. It didn’t say for dead cattle. It didn’t say cattle that were on private land. It just stated in the ballot measure that producers would be compensated for losses. It also said producers would not be required to invoke any land, water, or resource restrictions, which meant producers were not going to be forced to change their way of life in order to make this happen. We all agreed to that.”

May said the constant efforts to change the wolf plan — by petitioning to delay further releases, or by demanding only compensating if non-lethal deterrents are utilized, or only paying on private land or the claims divulging additional financial information about the operation, or ending multiplier payments for missing calves — were all discussed at length by stakeholder groups during the years-long process of developing the wolf plan, need to stop.

This is the primary reason I’m opposed to the ballot proposal to stop the wolf reintroduction. Not only is the ballot proposal a moot point, it was concocted without input or even familiarity with the stakeholders. There is no support for a repeal from the stakeholder groups, especially one borne at the ballot box. The wolves are present on the landscape and it’s ludicrous to risk a repeal that could damage the wolf plan designed over a period of years.

The unintended consequences are far greater than any potential gain, and stakeholders are now engaged with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and legislators to ensure they have the tools they need to deal with the wolves already on the ground. Continuing to demand changes to the wolf plan, as the anti-rancher crowd is known to do at every commission meeting ad nauseum, is ill advised and childish.

Demonizing the producers who care for the landscape and provide habitat for wolves and 900-some other species is tone deaf. Taking to social media and proclaiming “shoot, shovel, and shut up” is foul. I would venture a guess those yelling the loudest are not the ones behind a spotlight at 3 a.m., watching a calf born and keeping an eye out for cattle behavior indicative of predator presence.

The wolves aren’t going anywhere, and neither are the ranchers. Rather than donating to repeal efforts, time and treasure would be much better spent in support of the producers on the landscape and the CPW staff shouldering the hundreds of hours to help them. It’s time to stop shooting holes in the wolf plan and asking the commission to reinterpret the intention of the voters and deal in the reality before us. We’ve never won when it comes to ballot-box biology, and this half baked repeal effort won’t be a win either.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.