Washington Fish And Wildlife Commission To Mull Colorado Wolf Translocation Request

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission on Saturday morning will discuss a request to supply up to 15 wolves to Colorado for year three of that state’s voter-mandated reintroduction program.

A subcommittee of the citizen panel has already talked about October’s request from Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and their initial sense was that with all that would go into supporting winter capture operations, the timeline was pretty compressed but that the full commission should make the decision.

“We’ve got considerations with regard to (the State Environmental Policy Act) and tribal consultation, public input process, and the like, and given that, the druthers of the Executive Committee has been not to move forward with translocation,” summarized member Jim Anderson earlier today. “But we’re just four of the commission, we’re not the full commission, so that’s why we’ve set some time to have that discussion and make a considered decision as a full body.”

Colorado has been forced to turn to Washington (Oregon has been mum) after its plan to import even more wolves from British Columbia was barred earlier this fall by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which said the animals could only come from the federally delisted Northern Rocky Mountains population in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and the eastern thirds of Washington and Oregon.

That’s clearly called out in the Federal Register notice issued in 2023 designating Colorado’s planned wolf population as experimental, so it’s unclear how the state was allowed last year to acquire BC wolves. Also in 2024, Colorado had a deal with the Colville Tribes for wolves, but the tribes rescinded their offer because the state had held no consultations with the Southern Ute Tribe.

During today’s Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s public comment period, sentiment was strongly against donating any of the state’s wolves to the Centennial State, with both hunters and preservationists against it – though not all wolf fans were.

Even as her former coworkers at Washington Wildlife First and other in-state advocates spoke out against translocation, Samantha Miller, now with the Center for Biological Diversity in Colorado, pleaded for some Evergreen State wolves.

“Your Colorado pack members are struggling, and we need Washington to ensure our wolves persist. Greater wolf recovery is on the line, and without your support, wolves at large lose,” Miller said.

Hers was the voice of a mournful lone wolf howling in the wilderness, caught in a trap of wolfies’ own making – ballot box biology, CBD et al’s game plan to always downplay the success of wolf recovery and fight delisting to the bitter end, and the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s controversial decision last year to not downlist the species, as had been recommended by WDFW wildlife managers.

Were Washington to participate and send wolves to the Southern Rockies, what would that mean about the supposed fragile position of the state’s packs? Why, it would put the lie to that.

Dane Czarnecki, a young hunter who often provides comments to the commission, termed Colorado’s wolf reintroduction “a disaster for them.”

“Let’s not make it worse for Colorado and set back our state’s timeline on downlisting,” he stated.

Added Brandon Ross of Island County, “I strongly urge all nine of you to reject Colorado’s request immediately and not revisit it until we have downlisted wolves or delisted wolves or adapted a more regional management strategy.”

According to WDFW, a decision Saturday morning to agree to provide wolves for Colorado “would just be the start of the process.

“To actually do so would require everything that Chair Anderson mentioned and more,” said spokeswoman Staci Lehman this afternoon, referring to SEPA, consultations, public comment, etc.

“At this time, staff has not looked into every step of the process or every box that would have to be checked, but we do know that there would be many,” Lehman added.

All that might not be as much work as what went into WDFW’s exhaustive periodic status review of Washington wolves in support of downlisting, which the commission failed to advance, but it would represent a fair amount of staff time on behalf of another state and at a time of tight budgets.

In Colorado’s request to the commission and WDFW, Governor Polis indicated a need for up to 15 wolves – though five to seven would also do – for release in January. Commissioner Barbara Baker said the Executive Committee had subsequently learned there was a little more time.

“Either way, we had our own opinions and then decided to … have the discussion tomorrow with the full commission rather than making a formal recommendation,” she said.

This one will be an interesting one to watch, perhaps only for the very well-rested Daily Howler, but interesting nonetheless. Discussion is scheduled to begin around 10:15 a.m. on Saturday.