A coalition of northwest Colorado counties and agriculture groups want to stop the effort to put wolves back on the 2026 ballot
Despite having similar goals, the coalition claims the proposed ballot initiative failed to involve the stakeholders most impacted by wolves and could hurt current progress
Colorado Parks and Wildlife/Courtesy Photo
A grassroots coalition of northwest Colorado county commissioners and agriculture groups is asking the citizen initiative, Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy, to reconsider its effort to put wolves back on the ballot in 2026.
Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy is looking to ask voters to make changes to the state law that initiated gray wolf reintroduction with the narrow approval of Proposition 114 in 2020.
In a March 17 letter, the coalition asked the citizen group to suspend the proposed ballot measure, claiming that the initiative failed to get input from the stakeholders most affected by Colorado’s reintroduction efforts.
“Like yourselves, we share the underlying frustration with the administration’s approach to implementing Proposition 114,” the letter reads. “We would like to see a pause in any additional reintroduction of new wolves into Colorado until adequate programs and resources are provided to landowners to manage wolf and livestock interactions more appropriately.”
At the Garfield County Commissioner’s March 17 meeting where the board ratified the letter, Commissioner Perry Will said while he appreciated the group’s effort on the ballot proposal, it was “probably too little, too late.”
“The damage is done, (the wolves are) on the ground,” Will said.
The letter is signed by county commissioners from Garfield, Grand, Mesa, Moffat, Montrose and Rio Blanco countries. The coalition — which also includes representatives from the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, The Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado, Club 20 and more — was formed earlier this year in the face of the latest wolf releases.
Lauren Dobson, a representative for the coalition, said the group formed to build broad-scale collaboration and find solutions to pressing wildlife issues, including wolves.
Dobson clarified that the grassroots group is “not opposed to a ballot initiative regarding wolf reintroduction, but it can’t be done in a vacuum.”
“Any effort — whether administratively through the (Colorado Parks and Wildlife) Commission, legislatively, or by ballot — must ensure collaboration with those impacted,” she added. “While we welcome them to join our coalition conversations, we request that they pause their work and allow the conservation and agricultural communities to lead any strategy.”
Without the proper stakeholder involvement, the measure is at odds with the “policy outcomes that our coalition is working on,” the letter claims.
Dobson said that this includes the coalition’s efforts to find solutions through existing pathways like the state legislature and Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Further, should the measure make it to the ballot and fail, this could hurt the current public and political support and efforts that landowners and producers have garnered in addressing challenges with the reintroduction, the coalition argues.
What the ballot measure is proposing
Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy filed a draft petition in early January to repeal Proposition 114. However, as the petition has made its way through the state’s process for ballot proposals, this has changed.
Now, rather than repeal Proposition 114 entirely, the measure’s current language “seeks to end the introduction of wolves by the end of 2026” and prohibit the importation of wolves from other states, said Stan VanderWerf, one of the designated representatives for the ballot measure.
Up until January, VanderWerf spent eight years as a county commissioner in El Paso County.
The modification came following stakeholder engagement with the ranching and farming industry, who expressed concerns that repealing it would lead to the loss of reimbursement for livestock losses, he said.
The state law enacted by Proposition 114 requires that the state’s funding of the reintroduction include “fair compensation for livestock losses.” In response, the Colorado legislature created a Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund in 2023 to reimburse ranchers for the loss of livestock, livestock guards or herding animals due to wolves.
The measure Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy is proposing has two other changes: adding language to the law that would codify the compensation for livestock guardian dogs and other guard animals. It also proposes removing the term “non-game” from the statutory definition of gray wolves, something that VanderWerf claims is unnecessary to have in the law.
The measure is still making its way through the secretary of state’s process to be put on the ballot and could see further changes.
“This ballot measure should not be controversial,” he said, adding that he was “disappointed” by the letter asking to suspend the effort.
For one, the coalition and ballot initiative share a common goal in bettering the state’s management of wolves and conflict, he said.
Additionally, he claimed that some of those signed onto the letter had been in conversations with them as recently as a week ago. Some showed support for it, he claimed.
“We don’t know exactly what happened, why that changed,” VanderWerf said. “We’re going to have a conversation with them and make sure that everybody involved understands the scope and benefit of our ballot measure.”
He said that the group did engage with “hundreds of ranchers and farmers across Colorado that were really interested in getting some things set right that were made wrong in (Proposition) 114.”
“We just couldn’t get to everybody before we introduced the ballot measure,” he said. “But we are happy to have a conversation with all of them and try to work this out because it’s not because we weren’t trying; there’s a lot of people and organizations interested in issues like this.”
Coalition rallies against the proposal
Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, said the main concern with the proposed ballot measure was how it could impact depredation compensation — something he said the group is unaware of because they weren’t consulted in the ballot effort.
“If we can stop any more reintroductions and manage wolves and keep compensation, then yeah, I think we can work through that,” Ritschard said. “It’s just hard when we were never consulted or even made aware of this.”
Another concern is how the timing of the ballot measure and future wolf releases will play out, according to him.
“We could have another round of wolves released before this goes into effect,” he said.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s final wolf plan predicts that wolf reintroduction will require the transfer of “about 30 to 50 wolves, total, over a 3 to 5 year time frame.”
So far, the agency has gone through two years and two transfers of 25 wolves. With births, deaths and animals entering the state naturally, Colorado’s wolf population is estimated to be 30.
VanderWerf acknowledged that the timing of the ballot measure going into effect could be close to the end of Parks and Wildlife’s timeline for releases but said the goal would be to “deliver assurances” that releases wouldn’t occur past 2026.
Four of the organizations in the coalition — The Colorado Wool Growers Association, Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Club 20 — were part of the group that petitioned Parks and Wildlife last fall to pause further wolf reintroductions. The petition was denied by the commission just days before the agency began its operations to capture 15 wolves from British Columbia and release them in northwest Colorado.
“We thought having a pause would allow time for programs to get up and running,” Ritschard said. “As we saw from the first release, no one was prepared. It was rushed, and there was a lot that should have been done before wolves hit the ground. Once those programs were in place, then we could release more.”
With the wolf population where it is today — and breeding season around the corner — he said a pause or halt of further introductions is unlikely to impact the situation on the ground.
“I do not think a pause now will do anything,” he said, adding that with the current situation, stopping introductions is “more likely to happen now.”
Turning back to the voters on the matter is risky and could hurt the work that the coalition and producers are already working toward, he said.
“When we go back and look at what happened with Proposition 114, I think there was a lot of buyer remorse on how people voted,” he said. “I don’t think we need to mess with ballot box biology anymore. Going about this legislatively is just another tool. Letting the legislators get actual testimony from the experts to decide what is best instead of just fact sheets and (the) blue book is better.”
Ritschard said the Middle Park Stockgrowers have been in conversation with state and federal legislators since April 2024 to find options and solutions to dealing with the wolf-livestock conflict.
“The stopping of introduction does not change any capacity for (Parks and Wildlife) to take the wolves that are already in Colorado and manage them,” VanderWerf said. “It has to be managed in a cost-effective way, so that the taxpayers don’t end up having to divert just more and more money to this.”
The letter was signed by the following individuals:
- John Swartout, a former executive director of Colorado Counties, Inc., representing the coalition
- Garfield County Commissioners Mike Samson, Perry Will and Tom Jankovsky;
- Grand County Commissioners Merritt Linke and Edward Raegner;
- Mesa County Commissioners JJ Fletcher and Cody Davis;
- Moffat County Commissioner Melody Villard;
- Montrose County Commissioner Sue Hansen; and
- Rio Blanco County Commissioners Jennifer O’Hearon, Doug Overton and Callie Scritchfield.
The following groups are also represented in the letter:
- Delta County
- The Colorado Wool Growers Association
- Middle Park Stockgrowers Association
- Colorado Cattlemen’s Association
- The Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado
- The Colorado Outfitters Association
- Club 20
