Trump administration tells Colorado to stop importing wolves from Canada | Globalnews.ca
By: By Mead Gruver The Associated Press via Canada's Global News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump administration tells Colorado to stop importing wolves from Canada
Colorado wolves must come from Northern Rockies states, the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the state as it tries to restore grey wolf populations.
The Trump administration is telling Colorado to stop importing grey wolves from Canada as part of the state's efforts to restore the predators, a shift that could hinder plans for more reintroductions this winter.
The state has been releasing wolves west of the Continental Divide since 2023 after Colorado voters narrowly approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. About 30 wolves now roam mountainous regions of the state and its management plan envisions potentially 200 or more wolves in the long term.
The program has been unpopular in rural areas, where some wolves have attacked livestock. Now, following two winters of releases during President Joe Biden's administration, wolf opponents appear to have found support from federal officials under President Donald Trump.
Colorado wolves must come from Northern Rockies states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik told Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis in a recent letter posted by the Fence Post agricultural news publication.
Most of those states — including the Yellowstone region states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where wolves from Canada were reintroduced in the 1990s — have said they don't want to be part of Colorado's reintroduction.
That could leave Colorado in a bind this winter. The state plans to relocate 10 to 15 wolves under an agreement with the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Luke Perkins said in a statement Friday.
The agreement was signed before the state got the Oct. 10 letter from Nesvik, according to Perkins. He said the state "continues to evaluate all options to support this year's grey wolf releases" after getting "recent guidance" from the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Though some of Colorado's reintroduced wolves have come from Oregon, wolves released most recently have come from British Columbia.
The issue now is whether the federal agency required that wolves must only come from northern U.S. Rocky Mountain states when it designated Colorado's "experimental" population of reintroduced wolves.
A federal notice announcing the designation in 2023 referred to the northern Rockies region as merely the "preferred" and not the required source of wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife attorney Lisa Saltzburg said in a statement that the Fish and Wildlife Service was "twisting language" by saying wolves can't come from Canada or Alaska.
People in Colorado "should be proud of their state's leadership in conservation and coexistence, and the wolf reintroduction program illustrates those values," Saltzburg said.
The Colorado governor's office and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are in touch with the Interior Department about the letter and evaluating "all options" to allow wolf releases this year, Gov. Jared Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said by email.
Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Garrett Peterson, whose voicemail said he wouldn't be available until after the government shutdown ends, didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
The administrator of this group reserves the right, along with the site moderators, to moderate all and any postings to this group, including the right to enforce the ToS, the CoC, and also including anything that the administrator deems within his sole discretion to be offensive, including and not limited to off topic or 'no value' comments, with the power to delete in exercising those rights.
It would be best, therefore, to be civil in posting on this group.
By now it should be well known that the administrator is unable to open certain sources, videos and pictures. If he cannot, he will ask that they be described and explained. If the poster refuses to comply, their comment will be deleted. Instagrams are banned.
Tags
Who is online
84 visitors
Can't let those illegal alien wolves in to eat American livestock. Trump will add 10% to the tariffs charged to Canadian goods for every alien wolf that crosses the border.
Trump administrative policy is Pettiness before Country.
Any species benefits from genetic diversity. But we know how much MAGA hates diversity.
I'm beginning to think that Trump will add tariffs to Canadian goods until Canada stops the wind from blowing into the USA
In fact I'm surprised he didn't do so because of the smoke drifting south from the Canadian forest fires. It makes as much sense as banning Canadian wolves.