In 2020, Coloradans voted to reintroduce gray wolves into the wild, 80 years after the species disappeared from the state. In 2023, five gray wolves were captured in Oregon and released on Colorado's Western Slope. Now, one of those gray wolves has given birth to at least one new pup, Colorado Politics reported.
With the birth of the pup, the group of wolves is now officially considered a pack, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. Although the agency has only been able to confirm one pup, wolf pups are typically born in packs of four to six. The agency named the pack the Copper Creek Pack.
The reintroduction of gray wolves to Colorado has not been without controversy, however. The 2020 ballot measure to reintroduce them passed by a very slim margin — 51% to 49% — amid fears from the cattle industry that the wolves would eat their livestock.
In response, federal officials approved an Endangered Species Act exemption that will allow ranchers to kill wolves deemed a threat to livestock, a true compromise in the sense that it left both environmentalists and ranchers unhappy.
Some of those ranchers' fears have indeed come to fruition, as the reintroduced wolves have killed several calves and yearlings.
"That will be a problem down the road when [the adults] teach them to hunt," Grand County Commissioner Merrit Linke, a rancher and vice president of Middle Park Stockgrowers, told Colorado Politics. "Beef's what's for dinner and there are no consequences."
Speaking of cattle ranching and consequences, the beef industry is responsible for an incredible amount of pollution, including heat-trapping air pollution that overheats our planet, as well as nutrient-rich manure that pollutes nearby water sources. So far, cattle farmers have faced few consequences.
The benefits of introducing gray wolves back into an ecosystem where they were once native include restoring balance by hunting animals like elk. The disappearance of wolves from Yellowstone National Park led to an explosion of elk numbers, which in turn decimated willow and aspen trees along small streams, which in turn drove away beavers, causing even more widespread problems.
Environmentalists and nature lovers, therefore, are cheering the birth of the new wolf pup(s) and hoping that this heralds good things for their future and balance of the ecosystem.
"It's so exciting to be witnessing the early days of wolves' return to Colorado, and my heart jumped for joy when I heard about the new wolf pup," Alli Henderson, southern Rockies director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "With wolf families gone from Colorado for nearly a century, this pup's arrival is a huge conservation milestone. Wolves belong here, and I'm so glad they're back."
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