Planning efforts to bring the controversial gray wolf back to parts of Colorado’s Western Slope are officially getting underway.
The state’s 11-member Parks and Wildlife Commission approved a process that aims to engage the public and scientists to develop a plan to reintroduce gray wolves and adaptively manage the species, with state officials saying they see a “complicated but achievable” path forward.
The commission’s Jan. 14 action follows voters’ slim passage of a ballot initiative last November that directs the state to reintroduce the gray wolf by the end of 2023. The gray wolf once inhabited every part of Colorado but was shot, trapped and poisoned until it was eradicated from the state by the 1940s. Read more…