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 5: Beyond the Divide

HOLLY LUTZ: We'll turn in now to this aisle. This aisle is where the group Carnivora is kept. And within the Carnivora we have all the canids, like foxes and coyotes, and of course wolves. But it also contains things like bears and felids, which are large cats and small cats. Everything is dead, but not in the eyes of science.

I am Holly Lutz, and I am the Associate Curator of Mammals here at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

KRISTAN UHLENBROCK: In the subterranean vaults under the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, time is organized into drawers. Each specimen tagged, catalogued, frozen in its moment. And each specimen tells a story of a decision, of a moment in time.

HOLLY: What I've pulled out here are some of the more interesting representatives of wolves that we have here in the collections.

KRISTAN: Holly first got attracted to museums during her undergrad days. As her career evolved, she’s been finding ways to work with collections housed across different institutions.

HOLLY: I was fascinated by the idea that we can actually catalog life on this planet and use information we obtain from the natural world to understand things like evolutionary history and adaptation.

KRISTAN: She moves through the Denver Museum collections with the precision of someone who understands that science isn't just about the present – it’s about preserving evidence of change over time.

HOLLY: We have wolves from all over, but they are largely coming from Alaska or early days in Colorado when the museum was first established. There are a few individuals that I think highlight some of the history of wolves and our relationship to them in this area.

KRISTAN: She carefully arranges a couple of wolf pelts and three skulls on the examination table.

HOLLY: You see a few examples of skulls here, and if we look closely at the label, you can see that they were from over a hundred years ago in some cases. You can see on this label here – that's quite weathered, but holds the information – that this was actually collected by a USGS employee…

KRISTAN: ...named Bill Caywood.

HOLLY: …and he was actually quite infamous for killing one of the largest numbers of wolves during anyone's career. There are stories saying that he may have killed over 2,000 wolves. This was all sanctioned by the US government.

KRISTAN: The year on the tag: 1918.

HOLLY: The collections that we have here are very important because we have some of the final remaining individuals that were still surviving at the tail end of that effort to exterminate wolves. You can see that even though this is quite old, it's perfectly preserved. And you can see various features in the jawbone and the teeth that can tell us something about the age of this wolf. We also have all the information about when and where it was collected. We can look back to historic specimens like this one and understand the distribution of different species.

KRISTAN: Holly picks up the jaw of a famous wolf.

HOLLY: What we're looking at here is one known as "The Unaweep Queen." She was notorious because she was documented to be a fairly successful livestock predator. And if you look closely at the skull, you can notice that we actually can see bullet holes right through the brain case. You can also see that her teeth are really worn down. I am not sure of her exact age or if we know that, but this to me suggests that she had made it quite a long time and was living a pretty tough life, so this was one very tough, very persistent animal.

KRISTAN: This skull tells us another important part of the wolf story.

HOLLY: When wolf populations were so severely constricted by targeted killing, that led to something that we call a genetic bottleneck. That is when you eliminate genetic diversity from a population of a species. And this can have really profound effects on the long-term survival of that species.

What we can do now is actually go in and extract DNA, and we could potentially get information about what genomic diversity existed in populations during that time. By comparing that to more recent specimens, like modern specimens from today, that can really help us paint the picture of what has happened genetically over time.

KRISTAN: In 2004, the first confirmed wolf seen in Colorado in more than 70 years was found killed along Interstate 70. The remains are in the museum’s collections. And now that wolves are making their way into the state naturally and through reintroduction, scientists at the museum are figuring out what role to play in generating more knowledge about this moment in history.

HOLLY: In 2024, another wolf that had ranged from a different northern population was unintentionally killed in a coyote trap. And that was one of the first records of a wild wolf in Colorado. It was not part of any reintroduction program; it was just an individual wolf expanding its range. CPW was forward-thinking enough to offer it to the Denver Museum. And that's very important because now, with our cryogenic facilities, we have many different tissues from that individual that are preserved there.

KRISTAN: Holly sees the potential research questions that these new specimens can help answer – like what does it mean to have a healthy population of wolves in Colorado?

HOLLY: When it comes to trying to understand what constitutes a healthy population, with respect to number of individuals and genetic diversity, that's something that can vary wildly between different species. There are long-established terms and metrics that can be used: things like carrying capacity, which is defined as essentially how many animals – let's say wolves – how many of those individuals can persist in a stable population relative to the numbers of prey animals that they feed on. Do we find that there's an equilibrium in that ecological dynamic? It's really difficult to answer a question about how many wolves are too many or not enough because humans have modified the landscapes so much.

By removing wolves back in the early 20th century, there was a major disruption to the predator-prey dynamics in the state of Colorado, among other states. We saw an increase in prey animals that browse on the plants in the environment, and that led to a lot of overgrazing by these animals.  And so, while that may be an unintended consequence, the effects of that, and of bringing wolves back, are still unknown because of the human element.

KRISTAN: The human element gives us much to ponder, especially if we take a moment to think about what it means to be part of nature, and how our values, decisions, and behaviors influence it all, which is why there is no shortage of research questions to explore.

HOLLY: How does the genome of wolves brought from a very different place change in response to a new environment? How does the environment influence these wolves? What are the success rates of the offspring these wolves reproduce? Things like that can provide a lot of information and context for future decisions.

KRISTAN: The specimens at the museum show us that our history and past decisions are important to remember. And even though many still disagree about what to do today, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from our past.

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.

In this episode, we end our series with the hopes and fears for coexistence and the possibilities of what the future might hold. Because the Colorado wolf reintroduction is just getting started.

The Road to Trust

ERIC ODELL: Wolves don't recognize political boundaries. Wolves react to what they see on the landscape.

KRISTAN: This is Eric Odell, the wolf conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. For twenty-five years, he’s served the state, holding several roles, none of which completely prepared him for this moment.

ERIC: It's challenging and it's interesting and I've learned an incredible amount. Finding things that are difficult and trying to find workable solutions is a big draw. It's not easy work at all, but being part of this historic effort has been hugely rewarding.

KRISTAN: Eric remembers an early remark that continues to shape how he and CPW are trying to approach reintroduction.

ERIC: When we began the process of developing the plan, the chair of our commission said that we want to do this with the Western Slope and not to the Western Slope. And that has really stuck with me, in trying to think about how we can do what we have to do to restore wolf populations and maintain ranching and production on the landscape at the same time.

KRISTAN: But here's where it gets complicated: Eric often finds himself in the center of the conflict. He’s one of the faces of a government agency tasked with restoring wolves into communities that are, sometimes, not happy about reintroduction.

ERIC: I get blamed for doing this – "this" being the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Wolf Program's effort to bring wolves to the landscape – without any other considerations. I don't think that it's fully understood how much we truly do care about all aspects of Western Colorado, the wildlife resources, and the social resources that we have there too.

KRISTAN: There's a particular weight that comes with being a public servant in the middle of controversy – every decision scrutinized, every action interpreted through the lens of someone's own perspective.

ERIC: We've taken this intentional effort to work for a government agency to support the mission of the agency and to adhere to what we're working toward, which is wildlife conservation.

KRISTAN: And wildlife conservation these days is more than just animals and their habitats.

ERIC: Wildlife management is not just managing wildlife, but it is also addressing those social and political issues as well. Part of being a public servant is understanding what those desires are and what those challenges are, and trying to find the best path that can address all of those needs and work towards success: try to find the biological successes, the social successes, and the relationship successes.

KRISTAN: From the beginning, adaptive management has been the framework driving the reintroduction effort. It’s an awareness that today’s decisions might need to change in the future.

ERIC: After a certain period of time – probably five years, seven years, something like that – after we've finished the restoration of wolves, we'll reflect back as to what has worked. What has been fundamentally good about the plan? We'll retain those pieces in the plan. And things that haven't worked, things that need to be tweaked… as an example, our definition of chronic depredation - we did not have that in the initial plan. And we've adapted, and we've incorporated that through our internal processes as to how to define chronic depredation. And so, after a period of time, we'll evaluate our plan, and if it's appropriate, revise the plan. Managing 20 wolves is very, very different than managing 200 wolves, or more than that.

KRISTAN: Imagine learning to fly a plane while you're already in the air, with a full passenger list, in turbulent weather, and with half the passengers convinced you're heading in the wrong direction. That's Eric's reality.

ERIC: To me, coexistence means working to balance the needs of the wildlife and the needs of the communities, whether it's recreation communities, livestock communities, or others. And so, we've invested a lot in developing tools, developing resources, and developing staff expertise to help with that.

KRISTAN: And just as critically, it’s about listening to what people are saying.

ERIC: There's never a conversation to have about wolves that opinions and values are not expressed. It's a matter of listening and allowing them to feel heard and to be part of that conversation. It's very interesting to me – some surprising things, like the people that come up afterwards and say that they can't wait to hear a wolf howl in the wilderness on a backpack trip. And then there's meetings where people are red in the face pointing at me saying, "don't do this to our community." Having that ability to have those real conversations is truly important.

We're not trying to change values or change opinions, but to understand those concerns and then, importantly, to react to those concerns as we can. There are always some limitations, but there are also lots of opportunities. If we can hear about what's working, hear about what's not working, and opportunities to change, that's all very, very helpful for us to incorporate into the wolf conservation.

KRISTAN: For many people really close to this issue, working through it day after day can be draining. I heard this over and over – from the emotions to the uncertainty, the starts, stops, and pivots. And everyone seems to be looking for a little more stamina.

ERIC: There's no denying that sometimes it gets really old and tiresome and it feels like you're not making any progress on things. And some of the experiences have been just unforgettable career moments that I’ve had. But for sure, there are days where it's just like, this is just crazy. It's really, really challenging to maintain motivation, and so it's important to take some time away and reflect and talk with others that are maybe not necessarily as deeply ingrained in the wolf work and get their perspectives as well. But I think that there's a whole aspect of education that I've gotten throughout these last five years that's been very rewarding.

KRISTAN: One of Eric’s biggest concerns is the wide-ranging narratives that exist, whether it’s how the wolf reintroduction gets covered in the news and discussed on social media feeds, or the direct conversations he’s part of. Because this story contains layers, varied perceptions, and many complexities, it’s challenging to get a complete story and discern truth from fiction.

ERIC: Nothing's ever a hundred percent right. And that's one of the things that I've come to learn, being deeply ingrained in all of this and knowing most of what's happening at the time and seeing how that's portrayed. It's clear to me that there's not the whole story being told.

KRISTAN: Eric points to media coverage that focuses predominantly on what’s not going well.

ERIC: Especially at the more local levels, there's a desire to focus more on negative aspects of wolf management. And anytime there's conflict, anytime there are challenges to the process, that gets very heavily reported. There are successes too, that are not covered quite as much.

KRISTAN: You may have heard the phrase: If it bleeds, it leads. It’s a journalistic expression – perhaps a cynical one – that refers to the fact that negative news attracts the most attention and engagement. Part of this is due to our negativity bias, meaning we, as humans, tend to focus our attention on negative information. Yet also because a story about a wolf just being a wolf and preying on wildlife isn’t going to make the front page. So, one reason why Eric agreed to spend hours speaking with me is because CPW offers a unique role and perspective on both the debate and information being shared.

ERIC: Taking the opportunities to do podcasts like this, to tell our story in a comprehensive way as to what is happening, is important because it is an important story to tell and it's not always fairly portrayed.

KRISTAN: Whether it’s through the power of story, the power of listening, or the power of learning and adapting, the path forward for Eric and the agency is one that focuses on not just restoring wolves but also restoring relationships.

ERIC: Trust has been lost. If we can work to regain that trust by demonstrating that we truly are part of the solution to coexistence with wolves… it's a challenging conversation to have, a challenging proposition to take on, but if we can demonstrate that we're sincerely committed to doing that, I hope that we can regain that trust in anything that might have been lost for other conservation efforts can be regained as well.

Success is having wolves on the landscape and maintaining productive livestock production communities, and maintaining good relationships. So, it's those three things. It's biology, it's economy, and it's relationships. And if we can develop and have all three of those thrive, that's success.

KRISTAN: Eric’s story, this story, it’s something larger than just managing a controversial species. Wolves have become a test case for how Colorado manages the competing demands of conservation, agriculture, and the diversity of perspectives and livelihoods in an increasingly complicated landscape. One where division looms over much of the story.

The Divide is Real

TIM RITSCHARD: You think of the urban-rural divide, and it's a big deal. I've preached this – it's not just in Colorado, it's America.

KRISTAN: This is Tim Ritschard, a fifth-generation rancher. For Tim, wolves are continuing to fuel an urban-rural division, but he sees the root of this rift manifesting from something deeper: a disconnect between consuming food and knowing where it comes from. He recollects a conversation he had with his wife as they were driving through Denver recently.

TIM: I’m like, how in the world do you explain to people that live here about what we do up here? Because most people, if you ask, "Where does your food come from?", most people say, "Oh, it just comes from the grocery store." It comes from somewhere other than a grocery store. There is an urban-rural divide, and I don't know how you bridge that, other than going into schools and explaining to little kids where your food comes from.

KRISTAN: He often finds himself having to defend what he does for a living, and why additional pressure, whether it’s a new predator or something else, feels like another burden to a slim margin profession.

TIM: I did an interview with this lady for the Denver Post, and she was like, "Well, cattle prices are so high." And I said, "Well, yeah, but have you looked at fuel prices and equipment and all that?" Because the narrative was, "you guys are making so much money because cattle prices are so high." That doesn't mean anything.

KRISTAN: When Tim’s great-grandpa ran the ranch, they had about ten people employed with the operation. Now it’s only three, yet the number of cattle has gone up.

TIM: I have a couple high school kids that help me, and obviously, when we do a lot of the other stuff, you ask neighbors to come help, and so you get that, but you don't have the number of people working here that you used to have. My dad's always like, "Your great grandpa would roll over in his grave if he saw what it costs today to do stuff." Because it does.

KRISTAN: Tim and I head outside to get into his side-by-side, so he can go check on some of his cows.

TIM: Somebody asked me if you create a bond with them. I'm like, oh yeah. I mean, you always do. I pissed my sister off a long time ago… we did 4-H as kids. In 4-H, they teach you how to take care of an animal and feed it, but in the end, you're creating food. And we were walking my sister's 4-H steer over to where they were getting ready to turn it loose, and my sister was bawling her head off. She had to have been like eight, nine, maybe ten years old. And I looked at her, and I go, "It's okay, you can get a new one in three months." It did not help. [laughs]

KRISTAN: As we’re driving across the field, Tim turns serious, talking about how much wolves have permeated so much of his life recently.

TIM: The big thing is, I don't think anyone understands the impacts and really what this wolf thing has really done to people. I mean, I've seen battles among family members.

KRISTAN: As the head of his Stockgrowers Association, people often seek him out, so he’s frequently on the phone or webcam doing interviews at all hours of the day, talking about what he sees as working with the reintroduction -- and what’s not. Because being engaged is how he was raised.

TIM: My dad's on the hospital board. My great-grandpa was part of the hospital district when they founded it. My mom and dad have both been on the school board. My grandpa was on the school board. We've all been involved.  I don't think there's a better way of making something or helping something than being involved.

KRISTAN: Tim reminds me that many of us have ties to farming, often without realizing it, whether we’re a single generation or several generations removed. And if we look back even further, the rise of modern civilization is because of agriculture. So he’s found himself thinking deeply not only about society’s current connection to agriculture, but also what the future might hold for his kids.

TIM: I had a guy ask me if my kids could do this, and my answer was, if we're like we are right now, there's no way. I mean, I've sat there and gone, what am I doing? Why am I putting myself through this? Why would we want to put ourselves through any of this?

And so getting to that point of where we can protect our livelihood, then yeah, I think my kids can do this. But I think for right now, it's such an unknown, and it's such a jumping through this hoop to get to that hoop… and it shouldn't be that way. It should be straightforward.

KRISTAN: Yet even with all the uncertainty that Tim has about the future of his family’s operation, about what he might be able to pass down to his kids if they want to take it over, he still makes the choice to show up and engage in the hopes of continuing his family’s legacy.

TIM: I love doing this and I want to keep doing it, so that's why I just keep trucking.

Let’s Shake Hands

KELLY DUNNING: People get really emotional about wolves, rightfully so. They're a symbol of the West in all of our hearts.

KRISTAN: This is Kelly Dunning. Kelly is a professor at the University of Wyoming who lives in Grand County, Colorado, not far from Tim’s ranch. She has been watching the wolf reintroduction unfold in her backyard, while studying similar conflicts around the world. And she says that because things have been a struggle, emotions remain high, and tensions exist that need to be addressed.

KELLY: If we really want these wolves on the landscape, we just need to have a little bit more of a better-tuned ability to listen to the voices who are impacted by it and who are advocating for it. These NGOs are responding to a once in a generation extinction crisis. They're trying to bring back a very meaningful symbol of the Rocky Mountain West. That's a noble pursuit. At the same time, without ranchers, you don't have Colorado. You don't have the wide-open spaces that make the west, the west. You don't have big herds of mule deer and elk that need wide-open spaces – that aren't vacation condos – to move across.

KRISTAN: Through many long interviews for her research, she’s been hearing ideas about what a more productive path might be.

KELLY: Why not create a world where ranchers want wolves on their property? There are a lot of NGOs that have been working on the non-lethal end, like providing range riders, providing fladry, providing trainings, and stuff like that. But in talking to some of the ranchers, they're trained to death. They don't want any more trainings. They want money when their calf or calves or sheep get killed, they want money the next day, and they don't want to have to do forms because they've just been outside for 12 hours.

KRISTAN: One solution Kelly sees as a step towards coexistence is to make it worth a rancher’s while. She highlights an organization called PERC, which stands for the Property and Environment Research Center. PERC provides market solutions for conservation – in essence, incentives.

KELLY: They've made it worth the while for ranchers to have elk or bison on their property, despite possible diseases that can jump from these wild species to their livestock. Ranchers are lining up to participate in these programs because there's money to be made. NGOs are great fundraisers. They operate out of big cities like Washington and New York. They can move faster. They're more responsive. They can try these innovative things. They're not bound by rules like, well, we need the Wildlife Commission to meet and vote. Well, we need the rules and the regulations in place. Well, we need to do all this paperwork to make sure that this complies with all these regulations. They can just hand someone a check.

KRISTAN: Beyond finding practical solutions that can support coexistence, she says that we need to work on relationships by acknowledging when things didn’t go well. Kelly shares one example she’s heard ranchers ask for.

KELLY: "Hey, us not having a rapid response, that didn't work. We didn't have stuff in place to make sure that your family's way of life could continue. We're sorry about that."

KRISTAN: She says some of this is happening and getting addressed. Yet she sees a bigger opportunity for reconciliation – a chance to bridge the divides that have grown during the wolf debate.

KELLY: I think there needs to be a big trust-building effort across the state. Let's shake hands. Let's talk about how things are improving, because they are improving. They are doing these rapid response things for producers. They're giving compensation dollars. I think just saying, "Hey, I'm sorry I had that wrong. I want wolves to be around. Your ranch and your landscape and your rural way of life is a big part of that." Let's find a way that we can come together and see each other as the fully rounded human being.

Easy for me as an outsider to say, "here's what should have been done." I will say it because I'm a long-winded professor. [laughs] But it's really hard when you're in uncharted territory, both from a public policy perspective and a wildlife management perspective.

KRISTAN: Many of us may be thinking about how our social systems are becoming more polarized, how simple it is to slip into an us-versus-them story, especially anything that is involved in politics. This is what’s known as affective polarization, which is when we have a greater dislike or distrust of someone from the opposite political party. And what’s interesting about this type of polarization is that it’s not necessarily tied to policy differences but rather to social identity, which means the ramifications can be far-reaching.

KELLY: When you have an urban-rural divide where people in the rural half of the state see the cities against them, things like decision-making over water supply and everything else starts out from a position of mistrust. "Well, you let wolves out in my town…what’s next?"

KRISTAN: Through Kelly’s work on multi-stakeholder governance, spending time with ranchers, advocates, and government staff, she’s trying to find opportunities where people see the good in one another, see each other more holistically. To stop the simplified, us-versus-them storylines – lessons we can all stand to hear.

KELLY: Imagine the politician or the group whose politics or perceptions you despise the most. And I challenge you to try and find something… I don't want to say good about it, but you can see where they're coming from. That's essential. So often in political arguments we say, "They're just evil. They're just wrong." I recommend striving to be the type of person where you can entertain the other side's argument without shutting down, without freaking out, without breaking. You should be able to hold two competing ideas in your head and to really understand and empathize with the other side's perspective.

We need to be able to see the humanity in the other side, even someone who you viscerally do not like. And part of that has to do with saying, "I could be wrong about this." And when you are able to admit that, maybe when you're in a negotiation or a debate, maybe it's over a holiday meal and you're debating a family member, "Hey, I could be wrong about this, but here's what I think." I think that's a first step. Everybody having a little bit more humility, everybody understanding that they may not fully understand all sides to issues, and just saying that out loud, but also admitting when we get things wrong.

KRISTAN: And what she’s learned is that lasting solutions require actually understanding what's at stake for everyone involved. Trust isn't built in conference rooms or ballot boxes. It's earned by sitting at a kitchen table or talking over a fence line.

KELLY: I would just ask your listeners to sit down, close your eyes, and really try to understand where the other side is coming from. If you are a diehard wolf lover, think about what it would be like to lose a sweet baby calf right around Easter and have your children see it – because that did happen around here. And likewise, if you're very pro-producer, if you say it's ranching and then it's everything else, imagine a world without wolves for your grandchildren. Try to come somewhere in the middle, try to see where both sides are coming from, and then from there, that's where the real fertile ground is for creative solutions.

Colorado Pride

KRISTAN: One of my big takeaways from the wolf reintroduction story is how deeply people care about this issue. Whether they’re searching for ways to bridge divisions, coping with the hands they’ve been dealt, or holding onto hope for the future, their commitment stands out. And what seems to drive that commitment are the personal stories of what motivates each person to stand up for what they believe. This couldn’t be more true than for Rob Edward, president and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project.  

ROB EDWARD: I've learned over the course of 30 plus years that I am profoundly empathetic to the earth and its inhabitants, including humans. And sometimes that creates a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance in me that I wrestle with every day: that I can be empathetic to a rancher who hates wolves. You know, there's days when I say, "screw that." And there's days when I say, "you know what? I wish I could make this better for you."

And there are days where I remember driving through clear cuts in British Columbia the size of Manhattan, where it looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. And seeing my first wild wolf ever and realizing that that wolf was the start for me of a process of healing my heart and hopefully me trying to heal some part of the earth. So, there's just a lot of thinking, "have I done my best today or am I just too pissed off?" And I try always to land on the side of I've done my best, but I'm not always successful.

KRISTAN: Beyond navigating his own feelings around wolves, Rob has also found himself navigating different opinions with those who want wolves to be restored but disagree on some of the "how."

ROB: Some of my colleagues and friends, hardcore animal rights activists, and I have had really good conversations over time. I've always taken the position that I understand how all sentient beings should be treated with respect. Absolutely. But I can't change humanity's hive mind. Humanity believes it has dominance over the landscape, so how do I work within that reality? For me, it's saying that yes, individual wolves matter, but what matters more is the living being that is the earth and the systems that wolves are critical to.

There are still a lot of them who feel that any wolf that is killed on behalf of the livestock industry is a crime. I get it. I wish that we didn't have that happening, but the political reality is that's what's going to happen. We can work toward a day when all beings have the same level of interest and rights, but we're not there right now. And so, we need to do our best within the framework that we've got.

KRISTAN: Even if Rob doesn’t agree with every decision that is being made, he has hope that things will work themselves out with time.

ROB: We've pushed the reset button for wolves and now we're learning to live with them again. And the conflict is not surprising, but it's not the end of the world. We'll find a way through. We're working on it every day. This is the reality of living with our wild brethren and trying to do right by everybody. It's not easy. I mean, humans are so complex in the things that we think we're entitled to, and what we think we have power over, and very shortsighted about the long-term time horizon.

KRISTAN: And as far as what success looks like…

ROB: In the longer term, it's a forever program. Everybody is learning to live with wolves on the land again. And it's always going to be a challenge – always – and that's okay. It's okay for humanity to right a wrong and still know that there are hard days for some of our fellow humans because of that action. We can figure this out together. There is a path forward. It's never going to be "always easy, forever more." It's going to be periods of hotspots and conflict, but people will learn to live with wolves again. We've forced a cultural change on a subculture within American society, and I own that. I appreciate that pain. I want to do whatever I can to make it as least impactful as possible, but I don't have any apologies.

I am so proud of Colorado. We've been through a lot with wolves so far, but we're doing things differently, and I'm just proud of everybody who's struggling with this for trying to do their best.

Peace Over Conflict

KRISTAN: Throughout this story, what has become clear is that wolves are a wicked problem – wicked problems are tangled with values, politics, and lived experiences, and there's no simple or right solution, only better or worse choices. But what if the real work isn’t only about the choices and tradeoffs, but also the approach?

Think of it like this: for wolves and livestock to coexist in the same territory, the approach requires constant vigilance, adaptation, and tools that sometimes work, but don't always. What if the same is true for the humans in this story?

BECKY NIEMIEC: I think a lot of people want there to be a quick fix to this conflict. And by conflict, I mean not just wolf-livestock conflict, I'm talking about conflict between people, over wolves, between people over how we manage wildlife, over how we manage our natural resources. You know, "if we just put more funding into compensation, that's going to fix it." Or, "if we just put more funding into non-lethal, that's going to fix it." Or, "if we just do another initiative to try to stop the reintroduction, that'll fix it."

KRISTAN: Becky Niemiec co-leads the Animal Human Policy Center at Colorado State University, and she continues to ring the bell about what she sees as the underlying challenge with wolf reintroduction.

BECKY: I think we need a collective mindset shift away from thinking of conflict as something that one group can win over the other, or something that we can quickly fix, because that's not going to be the case. The conflict over wolves is rooted in different values towards wildlife, and those values towards wildlife are changing, but those different values towards wildlife are always going to be there. We're never going to fix this conflict, but what we can do is we can shift our mindset towards peacebuilding as much as we can.

KRISTAN: Peacebuilding: it's the ongoing work of creating space for different values to coexist. And we don't typically think of conservation as sometimes requiring the same tools we use to heal divided communities after conflict or violence. But when it does, it requires constant attention, adaptation, and solutions, as well as a recognition that it may be never-ending.

BECKY: Peacebuilding involves interventions for bringing people together with such different views about wildlife in a room, and having them engage in perspective-taking over and over and over again.

KRISTAN: And she says that this has to go beyond just talk.

BECKY: Peacebuilding involves investing deeply in rural communities that are going to have to live with the impacts of wolves and other wildlife. And not just giving them kind of one-off supply, saying, "Here you go, now you have fladry, figure it out." Peacebuilding is making sure every rancher has someone in their community who can help them continuously evolve and innovate their ranching practices to live with wolves and other predators, to monitor, and to make sure they're adaptively managing to address predators. And they feel like they're supported.

KRISTAN: One of Becky's concerns is that this could affect our ability to tackle other conservation challenges.

BECKY: One of the things that we've seen with wolf reintroduction is that it has created this escalating social conflict. We see groups putting together petitions to pause the reintroduction of wolves. We see a proposed initiative to end reintroduction by 2026. We see indicators of wolf-livestock conflict and depredation payments of over $300,000. And so, we're seeing this conflict potentially escalate. And one of my worries with that is it's creating spillover effects to other conservation issues and animal-human relations issues.

Once people are in conflict, it's often hard to figure out compromises. It's often hard to engage in perspective taking. If we don't shift into this peacebuilding mindset, this is no longer just going to impact wolves on the ground and people who are impacted by wolves. This is going to impact our ability to manage wildlife and to achieve conservation outcomes, because it's going to make it harder to get people to work together.

KRISTAN: She sees deliberative democracy as a way to keep things from escalating.

BECKY: It's this idea that you're not dismissing the fact that people have different values. You're not allowing this pendulum swing to happen: where one stakeholder group's values are typically heard in decision making, the other stakeholder group feels left out, so they go to the ballot initiative and then have their values kind of overtake decision making, and then the first group is upset because now their values are being overridden. That pendulum swing will just result in escalating social conflict. Deliberative democracy acknowledges that and says, "Let's bring everyone into the room. Let's have those difficult conversations." Once again, it's not a quick fix, it's just a commitment to a process of acknowledging and integrating diverse values.

KRISTAN: Becky's research has revealed another challenge: how the story gets told matters.

BECKY: One of the things that we found from the results of 214 media articles covering reintroduction is that the majority of media coverage portrayed human-wolf conflict, and more than twice the number of articles highlighted social conflict narratives compared to what we call peacebuilding narratives. In our research, much of the rhetoric used by the media to describe the social conflict over wolves echoed a kind of war/violence-oriented media framing discussed in studies of other human conflicts. For example, when describing conflict over wolves, the media often used us-versus-them type framing, reinforced stereotypes of certain groups being for or against wolves, and highlighted how conflict is resulting in threats to or demonization of certain groups.

It turns out there are actually tons of efforts on the ground right now of ranchers working with conservationists, working with scientists, working with government agencies. We have ranchers and environmentalists holding workshops, trying to figure out solutions. And so, if we are going to shift towards peacebuilding, we need our media to shift towards highlighting those, creating hope, and showing that actually there is the potential for groups to work together, and reduce this conflict.

KRISTAN: And part of this, she says, is to reimagine how government agencies can play a bigger role in being part of peacebuilding efforts.

BECKY: What would it look like to have our agencies be peacebuilding entities, to be focused on preventing social conflict? And what would it look like for our agencies to step in and say, "Hey, we don't want these pendulum shifts anymore. We are here for all values, and let's innovate. Let's stop going back and forth with ballot initiatives. Let's try to figure out how we can come together and move forward." Wolf reintroduction, and everything we've seen here, and the escalating conflict that we see should really be a wake-up call for how we rethink the way that we manage wildlife.

BECKY: We need some brave people: people ready to step in and recognize this extremely complex sociocultural context of wildlife management and wolf management. Otherwise, we're going to just be hostage to these pendulum swings of ballot initiatives and fighting.

KRISTAN: What I hear is a call for more people to engage in the discomfort of difficult conversations, and to engage even when success isn’t guaranteed. While the wolf reintroduction plan did identify social tolerance for wolves, compromise, and trust across communities as key elements for successful conservation, we’ve heard throughout this season about areas where these social outcomes are still a work in progress, which is why Becky says we need to spend more time focused on the human side of things.  

BECKY: One thing that I'm looking forward to is thinking about what it really means to manage wildlife from a social perspective. And to me, one of the first steps for that is to figure out how we can do adaptive management based on social indicators, not just ecological indicators. Wildlife management forever has been saying, "Okay, the way we manage wildlife is we keep track of populations of different species, we see if they're going up or down, and where we might need to intervene."

What if we did that with social outcomes as well? To monitor them over time and say, "Hey, over here we're losing trust. Over here, social conflict is escalating. We need to implement interventions to address that." And to me, that could be a whole new model of wildlife management that would give us hope.

KRISTAN: What Becky’s describing is an approach to making decisions where values collide, where there's no perfect answer, and when trust is fractured within our society. Because she says that the benefits of working towards peace mean that people don’t have to live in a constant state of negative emotions. As a society, we have a better chance of finding common ground on other difficult issues, whether it’s water, education, or health care. That when we build social capital across communities, we will ultimately have a better-functioning democracy.

Closing: To Be Continued

KRISTAN: The story of wolves in Colorado isn't written in stone; it's being sketched out in real-time. As we wrap up this season of Laws of Notion, the wolf story is still unfolding… and swirling in politics.

CPR COLORADO TODAY NEWS CLIP, NOVEMBER 3, 2025, BAZI KANANI: Colorado has been planning to bring more wolves into the state this winter, but now the Trump administration is intervening…

CBS NEWS CLIP, OCTOBER 22, 2025, MICHAEL SPENCER: Parks and Wildlife is planning to import 15 more wolves from Canada this year. But as your investigator, Shaun Boyd has learned, that plan May violate federal law…

CPR COLORADO TODAY NEWS CLIP, NOVEMBER 3, 2025, DAN BOYCE: This order, it came down from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the agency said to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, "Hey, your wolves need to come from Northern Rocky Mountain states only."

CBS NEWS CLIP, OCTOBER 22, 2025, SHAUN BOYD: Because gray wolves are an endangered species in Colorado, Parks and Wildlife needed a permit from US Fish and Wildlife to relocate wolves here. That permit lists six states where those wolves can come from. It doesn't list Canada.

CPR COLORADO TODAY NEWS CLIP, NOVEMBER 3, 2025, DAN BOYCE: So, Colorado Parks and Wildlife says they are in contact with the Department of the Interior and are exploring their options for other wolf releases.

CBS NEWS CLIP, NOVEMBER 13, 2025, KAREN MORFITT: CPW Director says he did receive guidance from the federal government and is not surprised to see, with a change in administration, there is a change in interpretation.

KRISTAN: Five episodes, many stories, and one species: the gray wolf.

This series is a kaleidoscope of perspectives: if the light hits it a certain way or you turn the angle, the whole picture can change. Personally, this story has opened my eyes to the deep passion that is tied to this species, the wolf, and the spectrum of viewpoints that exist. And my biggest takeaway is that it’s both a story about wolves and something bigger.

So, I’m left with many open questions: what does it mean to live with wolves in a modern world? To balance competing needs and values for the landscapes we share? To make decisions that lead to less conflict? And can we learn to coexist, not just with wolves, but with uncertainty, and with each other? Things are rarely black or white. It’s mostly gray territory.

I hope you enjoyed the series. Stay tuned for more exciting extended and bonus content coming very soon. Also, we’d love to hear your thoughts on what resonated or what questions you still have. You can send us an email by visiting our website at institute.dmns.org.

Credits

Laws of Notion is a production of the Institute for Science and Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. To learn more visit lawsofnotion.org. I’m your host Kristan Uhlenbrock. This episode was produced by me, Tricia Waddell, and Jordan Marks. Sound design by Seth Samuel. Original music composed and performed by Brett Kretzer with Andy Reiner and by Dr. Joy Adams. 

Episode 4: Solutions for Coexistence