by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
One of the most popular speakers at Club 20 in the 1990s was a Montana logger named Bruce Vincent, founder of a PR firm called Environomics, Inc. He was, and is, one of the country’s most inspiring and entertaining speakers on natural resources and conservation issues. I still remember his description of “the Walt Disney view of nature: wolves raising bunnies in old growth forests from sea to shining sea.”
It is shocking how many people confuse that fantasy with reality, thinking wolves can peacefully coexist with all the other cute animals. That has been a utopian dream for centuries, perhaps since the 8th century BC when Isaiah prophesied that someday, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”
That will be a great day, but that day is not now. Today’s reality is more like, “The wolf will eat the lamb, and the goat, and the calf, and the yearling, and no one will lead them.” Sorry, but nature is cruel, as Coloradans are seeing now that the first group of imported wolves settles in.
This month, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released its first “Colorado Gray Wolf Annual Report,” and it attracted immediate attention — partly because of what it does not say. It covers what is called a “biological year,” based on the reproductive cycle of wolves, namely April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024. Because CPW chose spring-to-spring as its year, the agency came under fire right away, because that timeline does not include the dozens of livestock and dogs killed by reintroduced and migrating wolves, or the decision to recapture and relocate a problem pack from Grand County. That all happened after March 31, so the report contains no discussion about any of that controversy.
