Colorado is the first state to intentionally bring back wolves by popular vote. But voting was just the beginning. From the ballot box to paws on the ground, this is Gray Territory, a limited series that takes a deeper look at wolf reintroduction and explores the complicated reality of coexistence. 

This transcript is from season five of the award-winning podcast, Laws of Notion, hosted by Kristan Uhlenbrock, Executive Director of the Institute for Science & Policy. For more information and resources from this episode, check out the episode summary page. Enjoy the transcript, and listen to the audio version at institute.dmns.org/gray-territory.

 

Episode 1 – Wolves Are Back

KRISTAN UHLENBROCK: The wolf serves as a symbol for many: untamed nature, destructive chaos, ecosystem healing. Villain and hero. Wolves evoke emotions that run deep – rooted in ancient lore and modern-day reality. And in Colorado, we’re experiencing a new chapter in a centuries-old cultural conversation.

In November 2020, voters narrowly passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce the gray wolf to Colorado. Five years later, paws are on the ground. And the Colorado wolf reintroduction story remains a divisive issue. Us-versus-them narratives run amok and monopolize headlines. It may be easy to think of this as a simple story. To simplify people: urban vs. rural, pro-wolf vs. anti-wolf, rancher vs. environmentalist. Frustrations and tensions do exist. Yet, if you look closely and listen intently, there is much more to the story than you might think.

Welcome to Gray Territory: The Return of Wolves to Colorado. I’m your host, Kristan Uhlenbrock, and this is Season 5 of Laws of Notion, where we push against our preconceived beliefs and think critically about the world around us.

Wolves are Here

ADAM VANVALKENBURG: We'll go check on the cows right quick. And then I've got some game cameras set up and then I can show you back here where we've had wolf activity and our carcass management and all that.

My name's Adam VanValkenberg, and I am a fourth-generation rancher here in North Park, Colorado.

My mom and dad live there. My grandparents got wild hair and moved into town. My grandfather, in July, he'll turn 98 and then grandma she'll turn 90. We're actually living in the house my great grandparents put together from old homestead cabins that were around here.

KRISTAN: How has your calving season been so far?

ADAM: Calving season's been great other than the wolf activity. That's kind of been the only downturn, but they're healthy. So far, the weather's been holding out.

KRISTAN: An overcast sky drops sleet as we bounce across Adam's property in his side-by-side. It's late April in North Park, Colorado - a vast, high-altitude basin that’s the picture of the American West. Rolling meadows stretch toward snow-capped peaks, interrupted by stands of aspen and conifers. This is big sky country.

North Park has deep ties to ranching, an abundance of wildlife, and vast public lands. We’re just east of Steamboat Springs and about 35 miles south of the Wyoming border. And it’s the heart of calving season – the time for newborn calves.

ADAM: We're calving out 190 cows and first-calf heifers. And then, we've got another 50 replacement heifers in the corral. And then, we just got some new bulls yesterday, so we've got 11 bulls to take care of during the summer.

See, there's a brand-new calf right there.

KRISTAN: Oh yeah. How old?

ADAM: Probably, I'd say 30 minutes.

KRISTAN: During calving season, Adam, his wife Kari, and their family operate around the clock. It's an exhausting dance - checking pregnant cattle, assisting difficult births, protecting newborns, ensuring everything’s fed, and a million other things.

ADAM: Right now, everything's hitting all at once. We're calving, we're irrigating, we're fixing fence. We're getting everything ready for summer. We’ll feed in the afternoon because, in theory, it helps the cows calve during the day versus at night.

KRISTAN: Some research shows that feeding cows during the afternoon into dusk helps push the labor to the daylight hours, when people are more likely to be around. Because, like with humans, births can be complicated.

ADAM: So, these are our 2-year-olds. And they're all pregnant. This is their first time having a calf. So that's why they're in the corrals. They're high maintenance. You got to check them 24/7. They might not want the calf. They might have issues with the birthing process.

See, you can see her licking the ground. Her water's broke. So hopefully by the time we get back, she's going to have one.

KRISTAN: Adam’s cattle operation is central to making ends meet. Which is why he needs to be vigilant to ensure calves are born safely. And then keep them healthy and alive until he sells them in the fall. Yet this part of the business is still not enough to support the ranch. So, he guides hunters in the fall, leases property to other outfitters, and harvests resources like timber and gravel – anything to balance the books. But calving season is the most critical and the most intense.

ADAM: About after two o'clock, everything has eaten and you kind of take a breath, relax a little bit, and then keep on going. I'll go till about midnight, one in the morning, doing night checks and stuff.

KRISTAN: And now the VanValkenburgs are living with another threat. A pack of wolves has been hanging around their property for the past few days.

ADAM: Oh yeah. It's stressful. A lack of sleep. I mean, it's a very uncomfortable feeling knowing that wolves are right here next to your cows.

KRISTAN: Adam takes me to check out one of his many game cameras stationed around his property. Getting eyes on a wolf is actually quite challenging.

ADAM: You see that road right there, where it goes in the trees? One of the wolves was walking right down that road a couple days ago.

KRISTAN: We head a couple of miles towards the back of his property up to a plateau. Sagebrush and patches of conifers and aspens speckle the rolling valley. Snow-capped mountains sit off in the distance. And my first thought: this is a complicated landscape of both public and private lands.

ADAM: You've got some state land over here. You've got BLM, you've got other neighbors. I look at this valley, and I see there's going to be anywhere from 500 to 1,500 cattle over here in about a month. What's that going to look like if the wolves have a den possibly right there in the timber, or what's that going to look like if, you know, they've got a rendezvous spot here? You're going to have 500 plus yearlings. We're going to have our cows and calves just over the hill. The amount of miles that the wolf covers, you're looking at thousands upon thousands of cattle right here. If they’re setting up shop here, it's not going to be good. There's going to be definitely a lot of cattle loss.

KRISTAN: One strategy a rancher can use to deter wolves… make them afraid. Wildlife management officials recommend early and aggressive hazing efforts to change behavior. In other words, be a bad neighbor. So, Adam pulls out his shotgun along with some cracker shells and blanks. Ammunition to make some noise.

ADAM: So, I'll do a cracker shell over here, and then I'll do a couple of shells over here, thinking that I'm moving. Try to keep them confused that way.

It's great to send it over the trees there to get a big echo effect, stuff like that, to kind of make them more uncomfortable. I did three of the blanks and then one of the cracker shells, being that we know that the wolves are here.

KRISTAN: For Adam, and many ranchers, right now it’s a game of staying one step ahead of the wolves. And every decision seems to come with a trade-off. Like shooting a cracker shell, hoping it goes off in the air.

ADAM: These cracker shells that I shoot through the shotgun, in the drier seasons, that's a fire hazard because sometimes they won't go off in the air. They'll land on the ground and go off, and then you've got a potential fire hazard there. These are a lot more unpredictable.

KRISTAN: Ranchers face a long list of challenges. Bad weather, water scarcity, and drought. Fire risk, grazing permits, and herd illness. Rising costs, fluctuating markets, and the stress of running a low-margin business. Existing predators, like bears and mountain lions. And now, a new challenge. The reintroduction of the gray wolf.

Adam scans the horizon for signs of wolves. When really, he should be getting back to calving.

ADAM: I try to get ahead of it as much as possible, but you're working now with four different government agencies where their gears are kind of slow. Exhibit A, right now there should be a range rider out here, but there's not, because they're in training. So it's like, I’ve got to go calve, I’ve got to irrigate, I’ve got to do, you know, that's the thing is all of what they’re doing now should have been in play years ago.

KRISTAN: The state range rider program is just getting up and running. A range rider is trained on how to reduce conflict between livestock and wolves. Then they are deployed to areas that need help. And right now, Adam and his neighbors need help. Wolves are out here running around, and he’s doing everything he can to keep them at bay. To keep them from killing his calves. He’s deployed almost every tactic. And he’s burning the candle at both ends.

ADAM: And, you know, talking with other ranchers that have suffered depredations up here, that's the first thing to say is, I never thought it'd happen to me.

KRISTAN: Adam and I get in his side-by-side.

ADAM (ON RADIO): “Sounds like we’re going to have to pull that calf.”

KRISTAN: His wife Kari just radioed that the heifer whose water broke is struggling to give birth.

ADAM: Let's try it one more time. There she goes.

KARI VANVALKENBURG: Yes! Okay. You're a good one.

CARLA VANVALKENBURG: Come on baby, let's get you going. Oh, you're a good one.

KARI: That was rough, huh kid?

CARLA: Boy, you’re a good-sized dude.

KRISTAN: Adam and I leave the cow and her newborn to recover from an exhausting and near-fatal birth. We head back out to check on his operation.

ADAM: Right now, I'm grateful the wolves are kind of hanging out here doing wolf things. They're preying on elk and stuff is what my best guess is. But, you know, at the same time, it's always a constant feeling of helplessness. It seems like the whole theme for the wolves is, we're always a step behind.

KRISTAN: Until you’ve walked a mile in a rancher’s boots, it might be hard to imagine why wolves ignite so much passion for some. I’ve learned it’s not just about another predator on the landscape. It’s more than that. It’s about respect for a rancher’s day-to-day life. And for us to appreciate the knowledge they bring about what’s working and what’s not.

It’s Our Fault

KRISTAN: For some, wolves returning to the landscape feels like tightening the vice on an already challenging profession. Yet for others, wolves mean something entirely different: the restoration of an ecosystem that humans deliberately interfered with. Wolves represent the healing of an old wound. A wrong that needs to be righted.

So, to understand why the gray wolf is back in Colorado - and why their return generates such passion - it’s important to understand what happened over a century ago and the challenges of today.

ROB EDWARD: We couldn't sit back and wait for decades, maybe even centuries to pass, for wolves to slowly kind of eke into certain spots. All the while, the human landscape is continuing to change in negative ways, so we felt that it was important to at least do this one last great project, which was to restore wolves to the Southern Rocky Mountains.

KRISTAN: Many people are passionate about restoring wolves to the Southern Rockies in Colorado. But one of the most enduring advocates is Rob Edward.

ROB: My name's Rob Edward. I am the president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. I've been working on bringing wolves back to Colorado for over 30 years now.

KRISTAN: Rob's path to advocacy began with influential moments that would shape his understanding of the American West.

ROB: I was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and I was raised there and spent my summers outside of Yellowstone on the west side, West Yellowstone. The likelihood that some young man from Idaho doesn't get influenced by conservative politics… I certainly was a young Republican to start with when I was in high school. And, I joined the Air Force and voted for Reagan in my first adult election. And by the time I left the Air Force four years later, I was very concerned about the state of world affairs and the state of the environment.

KRISTAN: Rob then went to college in Boston and, after graduating, moved to the Southwest to assist a Dine elder who was traveling for work with the UN Human Rights Council.

ROB: I took care of her sheep in the middle of the desert, which I've never done in my life. And then when she came back, I got back to Boston and opened my backlog of the Earth First Journal and read that there was a position in a little nonprofit in Colorado, working on wolf restoration.

KRISTAN: Motivated by environmental causes, he signed up and headed to Colorado. This was the early 90s.

ROB: My primary focus when I first came here was to help build a constituency for wolves.

KRISTAN: This was also during the time for one of the most significant predator recovery efforts in American history, taking place just north of Colorado. The return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. From 1995 to 96, the federal government relocated 31 gray wolves to Yellowstone. A story of such significance that it captured global attention.

One person leading the effort to return wolves to Yellowstone was a park ecologist named Mike Phillips, who would later go on to co-found the Ted Turner Endangered Species Fund and serve in the Montana state legislature. Mike Phillips and Rob were working closely to bring wolves back to Colorado.

ROB: As my friend Mike Phillips used to say, Colorado's the last best place for wolves. It is, in fact, a motherlode for wolves. We have the largest elk population in North America with hundreds of thousands of elk, and one of the largest deer populations with several hundred thousand of them.

KRISTAN: Rob also draws attention to the vast amounts of public lands across the West, including on the western side of Colorado’s Continental Divide.

ROB: Why should we not have wolves out there doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is keeping the herds healthy, keeping the herds moving around, letting the land regenerate?

KRISTAN: Healthy ecosystems depend on biodiversity, the way a symphony depends on different instruments. Each species plays its part, and when key players disappear, the entire composition can change. Yet the full extent of a wolf’s influence, beyond its immediate prey, is still debated in the scientific community. Some evidence shows that wolves produce trophic cascades – the concept that a predator can impact other parts of the ecosystem, such as plants further down the food chain. Yet some arguments point to other factors, such as humans, having a more significant influence.

There is a great line from one of the most influential wolf biologists, David Mech, from a 2012 journal article. He wrote, “The wolf is neither a saint nor a sinner except to those who want to make it so.”

For Rob, the desire to bring wolves back to the landscape goes beyond what he sees as an ecosystem benefit. It’s tied to a deeper history and humanity’s role in it.

ROB: I always revert back to the early 1800s when I'm thinking about North America, and all of the things that transpired between then and now as it relates to where we are with wolves. And I see something very clear, and that was that the fever dream of manifest destiny that led to the deliberate campaign to exterminate the native peoples of this land, combined with a campaign to eliminate bison, combined with the reality of westward expansion and hunters eliminating elk and deer.

KRISTAN: Today's wolf debate relates to a much larger story of American expansion and the wolf's natural behavior as a predator and scavenger.

Once colonists arrived in New England, wolves were in the crosshairs. These wild animals were once hunted for their valuable pelts and were in direct competition with humans for their meat supply – both wild game and livestock – which in the 1600s was critical to survival. So came the start of bounties and wolf extermination. And as settlers pushed west, that conflict continued.

ROB: As we're eliminating bison and there's bison carcass piles, wolves are feeding on those dead carcasses because that's their last vestige. So, they're concentrated in a way that ultimately allows the European settlers to say, “Oh, there's wolves everywhere.” And you're bringing livestock into those same spots. What are the wolves going to do? They're going to eat livestock. It was a perfect storm.

KRISTAN: While there are many complexities to the western expansion of settlers, the relationship to the wolf was driven by both some folklore and a real threat to progress. So, in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, the US government launched a major effort to clear the landscape of wolves.

ROB: This was a Pentagon-level effort to eliminate a species on behalf of a single industry. If we hadn't done that, wolves would simply be another carnivore on the landscape that the livestock industry would've adapted to. They are now a cultural flashpoint between those of us who want to see some vestige of wild America restored and protected, and those who feel like the act of doing that is an affront to their cultural heritage and their way of life.

The Colorado Wolf Debate and the 2020 Elections

KRISTAN: There is a phrase in the wolf conversation world that frequently comes up: you’re either pro-wolf or anti-wolf. And while that can be true for some, it often oversimplifies people and their perspectives. Ultimately, it seems to me, it’s more about people wanting to have their voices heard. To feel that their concerns matter, their way of life respected, and their values represented.

And in a democracy, that means our government institutions play a key role in reflecting the interests of people - whether that’s our federal agencies or state wildlife departments, to our commissions and legislatures. And if there's any single entity sitting at the crossroads of our state’s wolf debate, it's Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

ERIC ODELL: I'm Eric Odell. I'm the Wolf Conservation Program Manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And I’ve been working for this agency for about 25 years.

KRISTAN: Eric was born and raised in Colorado. And after he finished grad school, he got a job as a habitat biologist working on a range of issues with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, also known as CPW. The agency is overseen by a set of commissioners and manages wildlife and outdoor recreation, including operating 43 state parks and overseeing hunting and fishing programs.

CPW can trace its history back to the late 1800s. And over the course of his 25-year career, Eric has witnessed the agency evolve.

ERIC: If you look back even before my time, it was very much a game agency, game management. And that's the way a lot of Western wildlife agencies started out, managing wildlife species for consumptive uses. And now we've broadened our expertise as society has changed a lot, too. And so, we manage wildlife not only for hunters and fishermen, but also for all of the residents and all of the visitors of the state.

KRISTAN: One area that’s shifted has been in conservation.

ERIC: When I first was hired on, there was no conservation section. And now we've got a very strong unit that continues to grow.

KRISTAN: A goal of CPW is to protect species and their habitats for future generations. Up until recently, that included about 960 species across Colorado. Then in 2024, the state General Assembly passed legislation to expand the agency's authority even more.

ERIC: We went from 900 wildlife species to, I don't know, thousands of insects and plants, and so our portfolio has increased substantially in just the last couple of years. And a lot of our species, there's just so much that's not known.

KRISTAN: CPW’s portfolio of species they are trying to conserve and protect is substantial, considering the number of people and resources to do the work. It now includes more than 1,400 animals, plants, and insects on their radar. Of which, more than 400 are listed as a species of concern, like the endangered Canada lynx, golden eagle, and humpback chub.
Yet no single species currently generates the public attention and political pressure as much as the gray wolf. And while this hasn’t always been the case, there were indicators building over the years.

ERIC: Shortly after I had gotten hired on, there was the potential for wolves to be federally delisted. And if that happens, when the wolves are no longer listed under the Endangered Species Act, that means that the management authority goes to the state agency.

KRISTAN: This was 2004. And a working group was established to create a plan for how CPW would manage wolves if they came into the state naturally and were federally delisted, meaning they went from endangered or threatened to another status.

For background, the Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973 and provides a legal framework for how to protect and recover endangered and threatened species. In the years since the ESA passed, the gray wolf status has been a source of ongoing legal and political battles. Wolves have been delisted and relisted multiple times in different regions, as their populations started to rebound. This has created a patchwork of protections that varies by state and can change based on shifting politics. We’ll come back to the ESA in a future episode. But here’s Eric remembering what was happening in the early 2000s.

ERIC: I remember being a relatively new biologist to the agency, going to some of those meetings, and just seeing the concern, the fear, and the hope that some people had about what wolf management was going to look like. I was there as an observer. And, at that time, I was pretty impressed by the spectrum of opinions and the passion that people really spoke about, whether it was very much in favor of or very much opposed to wolves.

KRISTAN: One of those people at the table was Rob Edward.

ROB: I was working on the policy front, trying to push the federal government to initiate a recovery planning process here. At the same time also trying to push the state of Colorado to take the bull by the horns themselves.

KRISTAN: Rob was appointed to serve on this wolf working group. A group comprised of conservationists, ranchers, academics, agency staff, and others who would rarely have otherwise found themselves in the same room.

ROB: In the first face-to-face meeting, we started out by introducing ourselves. One of the ranchers was also a county commissioner up in the northwestern part of the state. And he said, “I know, all the wolf huggers here want to bring wolves back, and we could spend all our time on trying to figure out whether that's even possible. And we need a wolf management plan, and I have a wolf management plan. Every wolf that crosses the border from Wyoming into Colorado, I will shoot, and I will bury it, and the situation will be managed.”

KRISTAN: The early conversations were often tense, sometimes heated, and they revealed a deeper layer to the rhetoric around wolves. The debate was about wolves, but also larger social values, like rural livelihoods, environmental change, public land access, and who gets to make decisions about the landscapes where people live, work, and play. Rob remembers the heated moments, but he also experienced something else.

ROB: By the end of it, he and several other of the livestock producers on the group had had really good conversations with us about the reality of their day-to-day operations and the challenges they face and trying to keep their livestock alive, be it during lambing or calving season, and being able to be out there 24/7 knowing what's going on with mother cows and sheep, and the very fact that that process is an attractant to predators, and what it would mean to try to be vigilant for yet another carnivore in the landscape. And so there was an element of building trust between each other and of understanding that what we're asking in terms of cultural and industry change is not insignificant.

So, to have those conversations with people that are affected is important, and it continues to this day. It really is a one by one by one experience of building some level of understanding in both directions.

KRISTAN:  Ultimately, what came out of this 2004 working group was a plan for how Colorado would manage wolves if they migrated into the state, and not much else. Here’s Eric Odell, from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, again.

ERIC: So, as wolves came into the state, if they were federally delisted, we knew how we were going to manage them. And then, nothing really happened. The wolves were not federally delisted, so it never really got implemented. There was no restoration effort to it.

KRISTAN: For Rob, it felt like progress, but not enough.

ROB: It wasn't a statement that said, “We're going to restore wolves to Colorado,” which is of course what we wanted from the beginning. But it was a step in the right direction, because up until just before that group convened, Colorado still had a bounty on the books.

KRISTAN: Rob and his network were looking for more action.

ROB: But by the end of that, with the fact that there was no statement coming out that said,
yes, the state of Colorado should take the bull by the horns and get wolves recovered so that they can get them off the state and federal endangered species list sooner rather than later. The state wasn't going to do that. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission at the time wasn't willing to do that. But we had done our due diligence. We could say that proudly and fairly, but there wasn't going to be any movement if we didn't move it.

KRISTAN: Fast-forward almost 15 years, to 2019, and restoring wolves to Colorado stayed front and center for Rob. Based on conversations he was having, Rob saw little indication that the federal government or the state were making plans to actively restore wolves to Colorado, including in 2016 when the CPW commissioners voted against reintroduction. Also, legal battles continued about whether or not to delist wolves on the Endangered Species list. So, Rob and his organization, known as the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund at the time, felt that there was only one option left: the ballot box.

ROB: Once we decided we were going to do it, it was a process of coalition building, making sure that as many of our colleagues in the nonprofit conservation community were pulling on the same end of the rope. And then ultimately, once we got the language approved by the title board, it was time to hit the streets. You only get six months. So, you print those ballots, and you better be ready to go to town.

KRISTAN: Eric remembers when he first heard talk about the ballot initiative.

ERIC: Once it kind of became known that this was going to happen, and the entity that was putting this ballot initiative together, and that's a really important point, that this was done not by the agency. Our Parks and Wildlife Commission had passed a couple of resolutions over time saying that they were opposed to wolf restoration for a variety of reasons. And so, it became apparent to those that really wanted wolves here that it was not going to happen through our wildlife agency.

And I remember some very professional-looking videos and advertisements had come out. And I remember seeing those and starting to think about, oh, I should start to talk to the agency to let people know that this is coming. And so, I spent a lot of time talking to leadership around the agency about heads up, this is coming, and let's think about what this might look like.

KRISTAN: For Rob, now was the moment to take decades of advocacy and try to make it a reality.

ROB: Once we were approved, then the campaign shifts to all hands-on deck. We need to be running an actual political campaign. So, super good message discipline, working on all the different kinds of media outlets.

KRISTAN: No matter the plan they thought they had, they couldn’t predict what was about to unfold.

ROB: It was December of 2019 when it was approved. It's Christmas season, everybody’s like, okay, we're going to take a little time off. And we will reconvene in January of 2020. And we did, and we started to pull all the levers. And then in March of 2020, everything changed.

NEWS CLIP: A mysterious pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China...

NEWS CLIP: A new type of coronavirus…

NEWS CLIP: The number of affected countries has tripled…

NEWS CLIP: The World Health Organization has just declared that this is a pandemic…

ROB: And the possibility of running a traditional campaign went out the window. Fundraising tanked. We couldn't go door to door. We couldn't have tables and events and be meeting voters face-to-face. So, everything about the campaign changed.

KRISTAN: The pandemic didn’t just shift daily life – it shifted people’s attention and priorities. What mattered most in December 2019 wasn’t the same after March 2020.

ROB: We had a lot less confidence, but we proceeded as if we were going to win.

KRISTAN: Meanwhile, Eric was watching from the sidelines as the debate kicked up and the media took off.

ERIC: There are several interesting things about wolves and ballots. It's not the first time that wildlife management decisions have been made by ballot. That happened with bear hunting. It happened with some of our trapping regulations, but for wolves, this is the first time that a state has led a wolf restoration effort. It's the first time there's been a vote on the restoration of a species, particularly wolves. And so it's very, very unique in that way and not like anything that anybody else has any experience dealing with.

KRISTAN: At the same time, something else of significance was happening in northern Colorado.

ERIC: As people are collecting signatures, we're having natural migration of wolves come in. I think it was in June of 2019, a photo was turned into me of a black canid with a big collar on it. And, not just any kind of collar, but clearly a wildlife management collar, a VHF collar on it. And this photo was in North Park,  in north central Colorado.

KRISTAN: Eric called his counterpart in Wyoming to confirm. It was a female wolf, number 1084. As they were monitoring her, they noticed she had a friend. Another wolf, a male, that CPW was able to collar. And by spring 2021, they had a litter of pups.

ERIC: And this was naturally reoccurring. This had nothing to do with any wolf restoration. But we have naturally migrating wolves coming in, breeding, pairing, and producing a litter of pups. And this was the North Park Pack. And this truly was the first time that we had documented any wolf reproduction in the state since before they were extirpated in their mid-early 1940s. And so this was very much a historical event that had happened.

KRISTAN: One of the biggest controversies has been whether or not wolves would have come back naturally to Colorado in a significant enough way. It was still an unknown in 2020. Because even though there had been wolf sightings in the state, including this female in 2019, wolf advocates were looking for certainty. They also argued that because wolves were delisted in Wyoming, which also allowed hunting, that it would be difficult for enough wolves to make their way into the Southern Rockies to flourish.

The debate continued leading up to the 2020 election. But Eric and his colleagues hadn’t quite internalized how big this was about to get.

ERIC: I think we understood that wolf issues were going to be challenging, but I don't think we understood how much it was going to impact the agency and how much it is pervasive in all of the different kind of conversations that we have.

KRISTAN: The challenge for wildlife managers is that success often depends on factors beyond their control. Politics, economics, social change, even global pandemics can reshape how people think about wildlife. Eric and his colleagues at CPW found themselves preparing for a responsibility they hadn't sought.

More Than Biology, It’s About People

KRISTAN: If you were living in Colorado in 2020, you might remember all the campaign signs for the ballot initiative. I had only been in Colorado for a couple of years by then, and citizen-led ballot referendums were not common where I came from, which was east of the Mississippi. So, I was a little surprised when I first heard about the wolf ballot initiative in early 2020. First off, I was still wrapping my head around living in a state with what seemed like a lot of direct democracy initiatives – and the pros and cons of such a system. But also, why did people want to put wolves on the ballot? And what were the arguments for and against this?

So, then I started to talk to people. And I got introduced to a person at Colorado State University who was interested in what I saw as one of the more intriguing parts of the issue: the human nature side.

BECKY NIEMIEC: We're not just talking about wolves here, we're not just talking about species reintroduction. Really what we're dealing with here is sociocultural changes in people's values towards wildlife, and our government agencies trying to figure out what to do with these changes.

My name is Becky Niemiec, I'm a professor at Colorado State University, and I also direct the Animal Human Policy Center. And we apply social science research and stakeholder engagement to address animal-human issues.

KRISTAN: Becky remembers when she first arrived at CSU in 2018. Shortly thereafter, she realized how her social science background could be useful to a local issue.

BECKY: There was a guest speaker who was talking about this idea of a proposition to reintroduce wolves into Colorado. And I remember sitting there listening to this talk, and he was talking about how a lot of biologists were involved in this issue. And I was sitting there as a barely new social science professor. And I was thinking, you know what? This sounds like a huge social science question of "do we want to reintroduce wolves"? Why, maybe why not? And what do people want to see? And how is this going to impact people? And so I remember saying to myself, I think a social scientist needs to get involved with this issue.

KRISTAN: So Becky and a few other colleagues at CSU formed the Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence, a transdisciplinary research hub focused on global conservation and how people and carnivores can learn to coexist with less conflict.

BECKY: So one of the first questions that we had when we heard about this proposed ballot initiative was just, what does the public think?

KRISTAN: In 2019, Becky conducted a state-wide survey of 734 Coloradans from across the state.

BECKY: In fact, we found that 84% of Coloradans were supportive while 16% were against this idea.

KRISTAN: In the last couple of decades, two other public opinion polls have shown strong support for reintroducing wolves to Colorado. Becky’s research also asked people why.

BECKY: We found that Coloradans were supportive for a variety of different reasons. The most common reason for wanting wolf reintroduction was this idea of restoring balance in ecosystems, that wolves can improve the environment, and balance prey populations.
But people also talked about a variety of other reasons why they supported wolf reintroduction. Some of that was what we call existence value. This idea that it gives people satisfaction to know that wolves are out there. People talked about moral arguments, and so this idea that wolves were once native to Colorado, and so they deserve to be here.

KRISTAN: Then there were the people not in favor of bringing wolves back.

BECKY: Among those who were against wolf reintroduction, they talked about negative impacts to their lives. They most commonly worried about wolves posing a threat to human safety, wandering into residential areas, causing conflict with humans. They also mentioned concerns about wolves reducing hunting opportunities, harming pets, and threatening the livelihoods of ranchers through livestock depredations.

KRISTAN: While it’s not without its weaknesses, scientific public opinion polling can be a useful tool to get a pulse on what people know, think, and want. And that’s what Becky was trying to understand. This type of polling can also reveal public perception, and how accurate it is – or not.

BECKY: The top reason for being for wolf reintroduction identified in that survey, and the top reason for being against wolf reintroduction in that survey, were both not fully supported by the actual data.

KRISTAN: Some were leaning into the idea that wolves would bring “balance” to an ecosystem, which is an oversimplified concept. Especially when you start thinking about over what time and space periods, because ecosystems are complex and very dynamic.
Some may be familiar with the study of wolves in Yellowstone. Where findings suggested that as wolves reduced elk populations, this, in turn, helped the landscape recover, other wildlife to rebound, and even rivers to change course. This research became well known through some popular videos. But other research has come out stating that this cascade effect of wolves in Yellowstone is overstated.

BECKY: There's been a lot of different studies looking at how much wolves can actually impact ecosystems and how much we'll see those ecosystem impacts here in Colorado. And so there's actually been a lot of debate around that in the scientific literature. And so, I think the public had kind of an oversimplified view of the impacts that wolves will have.

KRISTAN: And some folks who were against reintroduction were also slightly misinformed

BECKY: Just seeing how many folks were concerned about wolves posing a threat to human safety or wandering into residential areas, a lot of the scientific research shows that wolves tend to avoid people as much as they possibly can. And, on the ground, the more real impacts are really around livestock depredations.

KRISTAN: Becky and her colleagues wanted to understand more deeply why people held these perspectives and if there was a way through some of the tension leading up to the vote.

BECKY: What if we could get stakeholders in the room who we know have opposing views and actually start to have a conversation about this idea and what people's hopes, concerns, and ideas for either collaboration or compromise around this idea of wolves in Colorado.

KRISTAN: So they decided to host a two-day workshop in February 2020.

BECKY: And it was really focused on this question of, if wolf recovery occurs in Colorado, how can we develop and implement collaborative approaches to minimize stakeholder conflict and human wolf conflict?

And we brought together 30 different stakeholders, and these included key opinion leaders from ranching associations, as well as hunting organizations, conservation organizations, wolf advocates, government, and the Southern Ute tribe. And basically, what we found is that the conflict over wolves and the pending ballot initiative and potential legislation was not just about the immediate impacts of wolves on people's livelihoods or their attitudes towards wolves even, but it was about deeper, more longstanding issues.

KRISTAN: Wolves have long been a symbol and a flashpoint in our society. And Becky was finding that was still the case.

BECKY: Wolves were kind of a stand-in for unresolved debates about, for example, how public lands should be managed, different cultural values towards wildlife and various species, and even who gets us to have a say in decision-making about wildlife management, whose voices have been prioritized in the past, and who's been excluded in the past.

 I remember a wolf advocate talking about how he had spent over a decade trying to be a voice for wolves and trying to promote wolf reintroduction. And every time he tried to attend meetings to have his voice heard, he felt like he was completely shut down. He felt like he was made fun of. One time he was spit on. And he was in tears sharing this story and saying, I don't feel like that's fair because I'm trying to be a voice for animals that don't have a voice. And then on the other hand, we had ranchers who were sharing, you know, I've devoted my entire life to conservation. I've devoted my entire life to living with the land, and I care more than anything about my cattle, about my animals. And to have animal advocates over here saying that you could just lose the cattle because a wolf, it's not a big deal. You're going to be paid. Why are you worrying about this? That is so deeply against my connection to my animals and to my land and so disrespectful to this deep connection I have with what I do. And I'm so worried that my livelihood won't be viable in years because people don't respect what I'm doing.

KRISTAN: These deeper stories are often what get simplified or overlooked.

BECKY: And so, one of the moments that really stuck out to me in the workshop is when we asked people to talk about what this meant to them and why it was so important to them. And we saw wolf advocates and ranchers on both sides of the table in tears talking about what this meant to them because it meant so much more than just the wolves on the ground. It meant their whole values, their whole identities around wildlife, around natural resource management, and whether they can be heard in decision-making. I say both sides, when in reality, with this issue, there are so many dimensions to it. It's not just two sides.

KRISTAN: While that workshop and many other meetings were taking place in 2020, the wheels were in motion for wolves to be on the ballot. Rob, his colleagues with the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, and other advocacy groups had gotten enough signatures. It was going to the people of Colorado to decide.

BECKY: So, I remember on election night looking at the polling and, and obviously the previous survey my team and I had done had found that 84% of Coloradans were supportive of wolf reintroduction. And so, I was watching the election results thinking, you know, this is probably going to pass, and probably going to pass by a lot.

KRISTAN: Election night, November 3, 2020, was significant in many ways. At the top of the ballot, we were voting on a President. Down ballot, Colorado had 11 statewide measures, including abortion, state income tax, and constitutional amendments -- and alongside all this was Proposition 114: The Reintroduction and Management of Gray Wolves.

BLUE BOOK EXCERPT: Shall there be a change to the Colorado Revised Statutes concerning the restoration of gray wolves through their reintroduction on designated lands in Colorado located west of the continental divide…

The Vote

CBS COLORADO KELLY WERTHMANN: We've been looking at the numbers all night. We've been watching very closely Proposition 114, which is the call to reintroduce gray wolves into Colorado, and this might be one of the tightest ballot measure races happening right now.

Even just five days ago before the election, the Trump administration stripping endangered species protections for gray wolves. What kind of impact perhaps that had on some people voting on this issue.

KOAA 5 NEWS: Support for Prop 114 to reintroduce gray wolves in Western Colorado. Pretty evenly split, but two major groups against the measure have conceded. And take a look at this map here from the Secretary of State's office. It shows much of that support came from east of the Continental Divide, just 13 of the state's 64 counties approved the measure, and all but five are completely or mostly east of the divide.

CBS COLORADO JEFF TODD: Colorado Parks and Wildlife told me today, this process is just starting before paws are potentially on the ground in 2023. One big hurdle the agency is going to have, bringing together people that were on both sides of this ballot issue.

KRISTAN: Becky remembers watching the results roll in.

BECKY: The initiative barely passed.

KRISTAN: The final vote: 50.91% in favor to 49.09% against. A difference of fewer than 57,000 votes. Or less than 2 percentage points.

BECKY: My first reaction was surprise. And my second reaction was, oh my gosh, I need to study what happened here. And so that's exactly what we did.

KRISTAN: For Adam, Eric, Rob, Becky, and many others, the passage of Proposition 114 was a moment that kicked off a new era. Colorado would be the first state to intentionally bring back wolves by popular vote. But voting was just the beginning.

This story is about more than wolves. It’s about who gets to make decisions about the landscapes we share. About whose voices matter when those decisions get made. It’s about navigating what comes next when there is no simple answer, no simple path forward.

Next time on Gray Territory, we ask: what’s really behind the divisiveness? And can Colorado design a plan to allow humans to coexist with wolves?

Episode 2: Whose Voice Counts