by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
As appearing in the Daily Sentinel
The Social Security Administration, ever searching for important tasks, tracks the most popular new names for babies each year (Olivia and Liam, four years straight). Similarly, Rover.com tracks the most popular pet names (Luna and Max). But who is keeping track of the names we give wild animals? Well, nobody, because we don’t name wild animals. In Colorado, that’s about to change.
In one of his best Gazette columns to date, my friend Dick Wadhams calls out a group labeling itself the “Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center,” which is sponsoring a “naming contest” for middle school students to name the wolves that will be relocated to Colorado.
“How sweet,” he writes, and I agree. He follows by asking whether students might also name the cows and calves that will be killed by wolves being introduced on the Western Slope after the 2020 ballot initiative, adopted by overwhelming majorities in Denver and Boulder counties. Or perhaps, he suggests, they might learn the names of the working ranch dogs killed, or the generational ranch families whose livelihoods are threatened.
It’s not a bad idea to personalize the issue, as Colorado Parks and Wildlife prepares to release the first of 200 gray wolves in northwestern Colorado, despite strong opposition of the people who live there (not CPW’s fault, mind you; the ballot initiative is now law).
