Earlier this month, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) released the Colorado Wolverine Restoration Plan, one of the final steps required by law to reestablish a wolverine population in the state. It’s a case study in how best to restore a native species that’s been gone for a century.

Wolverines are beagle-sized carnivores related to weasels, ermines, badgers, martens, otters, and black footed ferrets, all of which are native to this state. Colorado’s high alpine environment can support 100-180 wolverines, a species considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, without posing a threat to livestock or the state budget. CPW has successfully reestablished viable populations of elk, lynx, moose, bighorn sheep, black-footed ferrets, grouse, and wild turkeys in Colorado.

Unlike the wolf reintroduction debacle, thrust upon the state by a narrowly passed ballot initiative, wolverine reintroduction comes after decades of careful consideration by wildlife experts and lawmakers with input from ranchers and the broader public. This is how it should be done.

In the late 1990s, scientists with the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Colorado Division of Wildlife (now Colorado Parks and Wildlife) met to discuss the restoration of lynx and wolverine in Colorado. These reclusive mid-sized predators share the same high alpine forest. While lynx subsist primarily on snowshoe hare, both species eat marmots, squirrels, pika, birds, and occasionally larger animals that are young or injured. Wolverines especially favor carrion which they cache for later. Thanks to their high alpine habitat, solitary nature, and small size, neither species present a threat to livestock or humans.

Wolverine and lynx were both common throughout the Rocky Mountains until overhunting, trapping, and poisoning severely diminished their numbers a century ago. Thanks to state and federal conservation efforts, populations are slowly being restored. There are now around 400 wolverines in the contiguous US.

Having successfully established a breeding population of lynx, CPW began looking at restoring wolverines to their native habitat. Unlike highly migratory species, wolverines are unlikely to reestablish here on their own. It’s an anomaly that lone wolverine male wandered into Colorado from Wyoming in 2009. Wolverines, females in particular, don’t roam far from where they were born.

In 2024, after hearings and amendments, a bipartisan bill to reintroduce wolverines passed and was signed into law. Senate Bill 171 was introduced by then-Sen. Perry Will (now Garfield County Commissioner), a Republican with a wildlife biology degree, a family background in ranching, decades of wildlife management experience and a singularly impressive wild west mustache. Since then, CPW has worked to meet each of the obligations set by the law. The agency is currently producing a plan for communicating with stakeholders on proposed release sites and working with the federal government to get a needed waiver.

Altogether, the process has been driven by scientists and elected officials, supported by compromise, inclusive of the public and those potentially impacted, bipartisan, and transparent.

Contrast this with the process of wolf reintroduction which was driven by advocacy groups, dismissive of ranchers’ concerns, supported by the barest majority many of whom are rethinking their support, highly partisan, and far from transparent.

Advocates said it would cost taxpayers $800,000 a year but the price tag has exceeded $8 million. Much of the increase is because the cost to reimburse ranchers for depredated livestock is much higher than advocates anticipated. For last year alone, taxpayers will pay more than a million dollars to cover the costs of killed and injured cattle and sheep. Ranch and pet dogs have also been attacked. This should have been foreseen; of all the Rocky Mountain states, Colorado has greatest human population density and the highest number of sheep and cattle. This is not Montana.

When critics blame CPW for the slain livestock and the 12 dead wolves, they should be reminded that the choice to reintroduce wolves was taken out of the hands of the agency’s wildlife experts and removed from the representative lawmaking process. It isn’t just time to rethink wolves but the initiative process that put them here. Ballot box biology isn’t.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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