Letters to the Editor

I like to compare Wyoming and Colorado, in rough figures they are similar sized states yet Wyoming only has roughly 600,000 residents and they have wolf conflicts a plenty. Colorado on the other hand has nearly 6 MILLION residents not to mention year round tourists and hunters and skiers and fourteener climbers to mention a few as well as mountain homes and summer homes and vacation homes and ski towns so we can easily see 10x the amount of conflict with wolves. Wolves are a bad fit for Colorado. Some people will argue that Minnesota or Michigan has wolves and no issues there, well they have plenty of wolf conflicts not to mention the wolves are in an isolated wilderness region of the state used only fractionally compared to Colorado's backcountry use.

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Wyoming's wolf experiment released wolves into Yellowstone NP now they have spread to the entire state as well as Colorado.

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If "balance" restoring a "keystone" species is truly the goal why don't we release these wolves in Estes NP ? There are plenty of elk, no hunting, no livestock, a perfect fit but I fear this environmental "balance" they keep referring to is a ploy to eliminate huntable numbers of game and an attempt to decimate the Livestock industry which Colorado Governor Jared Polis has exhibited disdain for since day one. Polis has exhibited this disdain for ranchers by obtaining wolves from Oregon that came from packs with previous livestock depredation history, this was completely against his agreement with the wolf program cooperators. How do you expect that if you release wolves in livestock country that have a history of depredation on livestock that the outcome will be that the wolves will attack livestock? Pretty obvious to any rational person.

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That is the biggest hurdle of the wolf experiment is that the entire program is based on emotions of uninformed voters and not one person including the governor and his man wife are using any critical thinking skills.

If wolves are so wonderful why does the state of Idaho want to reduce their numbers by 60%

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If wolves are such a "keystone" species so important for all wildlife to live in balance why was wildlife and livestock so successful for the years while they have been gone from the west?

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If wolves are so necessary for "balance" of the environment why did they wipe out Idaho's Selkirk herd of Caribou? This subspecies of Caribou is now EXTINCT.

Sorry I'm rambling but I get that way sometimes.

A few other points of interest, about 3 years ago or more I was doing my own internet research on wolves and their hazards and benefits. Back then on Google you could look up "wolf livestock kills" or "wolf thrill killing" or "do wolves thrill kill" and I looked up the Selkirk herd killing and extinction.

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Now when you look those topics up on google they have been selectively driven out of the search results, sanitized if you will. You can still find them but they are buried and the internet is now flooded with pro wolf bullshit by wolf foamers that want wolves in the woods even if it means the death of all other wildlife and livestock.

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If wolves make it to Colorado on their own I guess that's fine but we have no business trying to install them and make them fit. The other problem I see (there are still many) is that there was still some remnant population of wolves that were native to Colorado and NewMexico, very few but a known fact to many outdoorsmen. Wolves by their very nature do not tolerate other competitors so naturally the larger transplants will eliminate the very last of the few remaining native wolves and if they are successful in establishing a foothold they will kill the Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico, a native species, not a transplant from the Mackenzie Valley.

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~Dave Snellstorm, Hunter, Business Owner in Southern Colorado

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