Circling scavenger birds pointed Doug Bruchez to the dead cow. He found it in a creek near the headwaters of the Colorado River in the aftermath of a blizzard last January, head down beneath the current. A trail of blood led back to the shores, where snow trampled in the willows suggested the violence of its final moments. One leg was badly mangled.
“It was most definitely attacked by something,” he said.
A fifth-generation rancher, Mr. Bruchez knows how to identify predators by the marks they leave. Coyotes typically feed on prey by entering through the rear. Bears roll back the skin and rip into the flesh. Mountain lions work with surgical precision, cleanly slicing the hide. This cow showed none of those signs. And the attacking animal had made little attempt to eat its kill. Instead, the predator had left behind marks on the hind parts, where dull teeth had raked the skin as it clamped down.
Wildlife officials said it wasn’t a wolf. But three months later, Mr. Bruchez discovered a dead calf that showed similar signs. This time, authorities declared it a wolf kill, the first confirmed depredation of livestock by one of the animals since Colorado introduced 10 grey wolves from Oregon in December, 2023.
In the months since, dozens more livestock have been killed. And what Colorado ranchers like Mr. Bruchez have experienced has raised questions about the limits of a decades-long effort to restore the apex predator to the U.S. West – an attempt to reverse one consequence of Western settlement that relies in part on wildlife caught in British Columbia. But now, plans to send Canadian wolves south are coming under pointed attack.
Doug Bruchez sees wolves as an unwelcome addition to this area. On his phone, he keeps evidence of their damage to livestock.
Gray wolves, also called timber wolves, once ranged over about two-thirds of the United States. This one is in Minnesota, one of the remaining strongholds of the species.Dawn Villella/The Associated Press
“Wolves are a powerful symbol,” said Michael Saul, the Rockies and Plains program director at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group that has backed the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado. To some, “they represent fear and change – not just the mythical fear of the big bad wolf, but that the cultural dominance of a certain way of life may be slipping away. And that’s hard to see.”
To admirers, though, the return of the wolf represents a tangible effort to reassemble a natural order badly damaged by human settlement, colonization and exploitation.
The reintroduction of wolves to the U.S. West, where they have been absent since the first half of the 20th century, is now a three-decade project. In Yellowstone National Park, 41 wild wolves, some from Canada, were released in 1995 to re-establish a population. The animals have been credited with extraordinary change and restoration of balance to the ecosystem: adjusting the way species such as elk graze the landscape, for example, has fostered the growth of aspen and other vegetation, and thereby bolstered beaver populations. Idaho brought in wolves around the same time. It and Montana now count more than 1,000 wolves each.
In 2020, Colorado voters approved wolf reintroduction by a narrow margin – just 50.9 per cent. But the re-election of Donald Trump as president has raised new fears among groups seeking to restore wolves. In 2017, during Mr. Trump’s first term, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted wolves as endangered. Wyoming now allows unrestricted hunting of wolves in parts of the state. Idaho and Montana both offer compensation to hunters and trappers to reduce wolf numbers.
“Certainly at the federal level, we’re real concerned,” Mr. Saul said. Under Mr. Trump, “we know we’re going to be looking at attacks on bedrock federal wildlife and environmental protections. We fought that before and we’ll fight that again.”
Colorado’s wolf plan has been led by the state, which is using its land for reintroduction – shielding the program from some federal influence. And Colorado is different in several key ways from other states that have brought back wolves. It is far more populous – home to nearly twice as many people as Montana and Idaho combined – and led by Democrats, who hold power in the state legislature and major cities.
But at the state level, too, there are signs of change. In November, Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have banned the hunting and trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. Ranchers sees that as a sign of shifting attitudes among people who not long ago supported bringing in wolves.
The state says it remains committed to growing its nascent wolf population. Restoring healthy numbers is “very achievable and Coloradans from the western slopes to the front will all be richer for it if it succeeds,” Mr. Saul said. Advocates hope to introduce several dozen wolves.
The move has been championed by state Governor Jared Polis, who in 2019 visited a wildlife sanctuary to pet a wolf that affectionately licked his husband, Marlon Reis. The first gentleman is a dedicated advocate; in November he promoted a non-profit group’s US$50,000 reward for information leading to charges against anyone who illegally kills a wolf. It is “an added layer of protection for Colorado’s precious grey wolves,” he wrote on Facebook.
The predators, he added, “pose less danger to livestock than bad weather, birthing problems and illnesses, especially respiratory illnesses.”
Colorado wolves were extirpated in the 1940s, after a federal-government-backed cull that killed more than 24,000 of the animals in the Rocky Mountain West between 1915 and 1942. Across the U.S., wolf numbers fell to just a few hundred from two million. It was part of a broader remaking of the American landscape in which bison were also nearly hunted to extinction. The large bovines – which once numbered in the tens of millions – were historically an important part of wolf diets.
A map at Mr. Bruchez's ranch outlines the towns, ranches and wild spaces of the Middle Park alpine basin. Future California politician John Charles Frémont explored the area in the 1840s.
In 1994, a survey showed 60 per cent of Colorado’s residents favoured the idea of bringing back wolves. Support grew in subsequent years, amid a broader reconsideration of the value of the natural order. In 2020, Coloradans passed a wolf reintroduction ballot measure, and in 2023 the state brought in an initial 10 wolves from Oregon.
This winter, it will bring in an additional 10 to 15 wolves from B.C. The Canadian animals will be taken from places wolves are abundant, livestock are not present – which means the wolves should not be accustomed to gorging on cows – and culls are being used to protect threatened caribou populations. The province has been eager to participate, said Nathan Cullen, who was until recently the B.C. minister of water, land and resource stewardship.
“There’s no restoration back to original,” he said. “Yet we know wolves play an incredibly integral role in the environment, and in terms of keeping other stocks healthy and viable and keeping down disease.”
Biologists on both sides of the border support the idea. In early December, however, the Colorado Conservation Alliance sent the province a letter warning it is prepared to pursue legal action if the plan goes ahead.
“We are ready to do what is necessary,” the letter says, “to ensure that all applicable procedures are correctly and properly followed under law before any possible introduction of grey wolves occurs.”
(In a statement, the B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship said it “will be respectful” of any decision made by the state of Colorado.)
Mr. Bruchez checks out a sign warning away people who voted to bring back wolves in Colorado. ‘Do not recreate here, you are not welcome.’
Those who support bringing back wolves are “idealistic and they’re naive,” said Colorado rancher Renee Deal. “And they don’t understand our world.”
She hires Indigenous men from the Chihuahua Mountains of Mexico to keep watch over her sheep. These men are not easily intimidated – one makes his own skunk jerky. “They know how to live off the land. But they have told me how terrified they are of the wolves,” she said. The next wolves are likely to be reintroduced near her grazing lands.
That’s after an eventful year for the initial group.
Three of the 10 imported Oregon wolves have already died. A fourth is now in what critics call “puppy prison” with four young, after it denned near grazing pastures where Mr. Bruchez and others keep their livestock, forcing its removal. Wildlife officials were unable to find a fifth pup.
Still, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources says it is pleased with the reintroduction process so far. The number of deaths is “not cause for alarm and is in line with typical wolf survival,” it said in a statement.
The state, it added, is working to ensure there are range riders who can patrol areas where wolves approach livestock, in order to scare them away. The department also dismissed concerns that the animals are habituated to humans.
Jeff Davis, a program director for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, has pointed to the “remarkable” success of the first wolf introduction, which counts seven surviving adults and five pups after the first year.
But ranchers say the state remains unprepared to properly manage wolves. One of the things they have found most frightening is the animals’ lack of fear. During calving season, one wolf came right up to rancher Conway Farrell’s mother as she tried to protect a newborn calf in the middle of the night. The family spent more than 24 hours with their herd through a blizzard, attempting to keep away wolves that refused to be scared off.
“There’s a reason our ancestors got rid of these things,” Mr. Farrell said.
When the wolves first arrived, he thought it would be possible to co-exist with them. “Now, we hate every wolf. My advice to everybody is start shooting them and poisoning them.”
The punishment for doing so is severe: up to a year in jail and a fine of US$100,000.
Mr. Bruchez also has little fondness for wolves. He is no hater of wildlife – in 2020, the local region named his family “conservationists of the year” – but he sees the animals as both undesirable and unnecessary, their place in the ecosystem supplanted by hunters that are more capable and far more numerous.
“There are apex predators in Colorado,” he said. “They’re humans.”
Together Mr. Farrell and Mr. Bruchez count what they believe are more 70 livestock killed by wolves on their ranches alone, several times the official tally. They have petitioned Colorado to set in place greater livestock protections.
In the meantime, Colorado ranchers say they expect to continue the great lengths they have gone to protect their herds.
Don Gittleson has bought five different breeds of horned cattle – Longhorn, Corriente, Welsh Black, Tarentaise, horned Herefords – in hopes they will gore attacking wolves. He has installed dozens of game cameras, hoping the flash will cause the wolves to retreat. He has hung flagging tape, shot off fireworks, fired exploding cracker shells, burned twine, affixed bells to cows and installed lights that emit a powerful strobe of red, white and blue.
With the latter, a wolf “walked right past it the first night we put it up,” said David Gittleson, his son. They lost a calf that night.
The family has gained an admiration for the predators, which have learned how to drive elk through cattle, breaking up the livestock to make individuals easier to hunt.
“Everyone thinks you’re dealing with a stupid animal,” Don said. “You’re not. The stupid animal has two feet.”
Matt Barnes, a specialist in wolf-livestock co-existence who has offered advice to Colorado wildlife commissioners, suggests ranchers combine herds into larger numbers – what he calls a “cohesive social unit” – and manage them in such a way that they clump together against predators, as wild bison and muskox do.
But Colorado may also have to feed its new wild wolves to keep them from livestock, he acknowledged, especially during denning season after pups are born. One way is to drop roadkill by helicopter. “These are some of the most valuable individual animals in North America based on how rare they are,” he said. “I think a pretty extreme effort on their behalf is justified.”
Colorado has already pledged to compensate ranchers for any livestock they lose. Dead cows aren’t reason enough to abandon wildlife restoration, Mr. Barnes said.
“Maybe some people have the idea that it will always be peaceful and bloodless, and that’s really not true. I think there’s always going to be some conflict,” he added.
Steffen Schmidt/ Keystone via AP
The wild life: More from The Globe and Mail
The Decibel podcast
Canada is leading the charge to clean up ghost gear, the abandoned fishing nets, traps and other items that litter the ocean floor. Justine Hunter spoke with The Decibel about how the gear got there and why it’s harmful to wildlife. Subscribe for more episodes.
In depth
For wild horses, Alberta’s arguments over agriculture and ecology are a matter of life or death
Wildlife rehab centre teaches big lessons about humanity and nature
Bison bounce back in the American West, giving Indigenous nations hope for restorations of their own