A representative of a wolf advocacy group, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, recently addressed a gathering of Colorado residents, claiming the placement of wolves on the Colorado landscape is “most germane” to the state’s future, adding “there’s no downside and there’s a real big upside.”
The RMEF disputed those claims.
“Wolves have a measureable and oftentimes detrimental impact on big game management wherever they go. Their reintroduction into the northern Rocky Mountains led to a reduction of the northern Yellowstone herd by more than 80 percent,” said David Allen, RMEF president and CEO. “Among other things, wolves also greatly reduced elk numbers to dangerously low levels in central Idaho and have a profound impact on declining moose and deer populations in the western Great Lakes region.”
The northern Yellowstone elk herd numbered more than 19,000 before wolf reintroduction in the mid-1990s but dropped below 4,000 in 2012. Increasing grizzly, black bear and mountain lion populations also played a role in the decline. Minnesota’s moose population numbered approximately 8,840 in 2006 but since dropped 55 percent to an estimated 4,020 in 2016.
“We have also witnessed time and time again that pro-wolf groups seek to ignore agreed upon population recovery goals, thus moving the goals posts, so to speak, by filing obstructionist lawsuits designed to drag out or deny the delisting process altogether and allowing wolf populations to soar well above agreed upon levels,” said Allen. “These groups totally ignore what they themselves agree to once they get wolves on the landscape and they use lawsuits to manipulate the system, ignoring state-based management. And, in many cases, the American taxpayers are paying for their legal fees.”
