Instead of putting the wolves here on the West Slope of Colorado, they should put them in the counties where Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs are. They voted them in. Unlike near Yellowstone, the ranchers here still haven't gotten the thumbs up that they can protect their herd should the wolves attack.
Honestly
burntfoot , I think you are echoing the complaints of ranchers rather than looking at the complete picture and the facts. Taking your second contention first: Yes, the ranchers have been told what they can and cannot do if wolves attack their herds. The
Colorado Wolf Management Plan was published last year. Ranchers don't have to read the complete document to learn what actions they can take to protect their herds or to be reimbursed for losses.
The
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) associated with the Plan summarize that briefly as follows:Do West Slope ranchers have blanket permission to kill wolves that spook their herds? No, and neither did Yellowstone area ranchers. And they knew that ahead of time. But what we found in the Northern Rockies is that ranchers rarely were present to witness the cause of death of their livestock. So the ranchers tended to blame wolves every time, no matter if their own dogs were to blame, or even a winter storm.
It's simple. If Colorado Parks and Wildlife is offering to reimburse ranchers for dead livestock killed by wolves, the ranchers quickly learn to blame wolves for every dead animal in hope the state will pay them — regardless whether wolves were involved or not.
But beyond the wolves, look at the ways West-Slope ranchers benefit from taxes paid by the East-Slope population centers that voted for wolves on federal land. West-Slope ranchers receive millions upon millions of
Federal Farm and Ranch subsidies every year, up toward a billion dollars in the last couple decades. Those subsidies come from taxpayer dollars, regardless of which slope the taxpayers live on.
And not included in those subsidies are the benefits West-Slope ranchers receive from having all those state and national forests on their side of the state. It's doubtful that many ranchers could even survive without cheap federal grazing fees. A rancher can boast about how long ago his ancestors homesteaded on a few hundred acres, despite the fact that his entire ranching operation, then and now, depends on grazing his cattle on thousands more acres of federal land at minimum costs.
Not included also in those taxpayer-subsidy millions are the easily-accessed firewood to heat the ranchers' homes, also at low cost. And not included are the game animals so near to home to fill his freezer for the low cost of a hunting license and a few tags.
Then there is the taxpayer-funded Wildlife Services that kills predators to make the country safer for ranching. And that agency is inclined to ignore the biological fact that the more coyotes they kill, the higher the coyote birth-rate becomes. Thus there are more coyotes, and more tax-payer-funds spent by Wildlife Services to appease the ranchers.
Ranchers in this country, by their incessant complaining, have been catered to by state and federal governments for well over a century. When miners and settlers invaded what would become the state of Colorado, it was an area rich in wildlife. And the wolves of Colorado did as much as any force to keep that wildlife healthy and bountiful. But due to rancher demand, the wolves were killed off. The wolves that will return are a tiny fraction of the number that were slaughtered.
The fact is that the ungulate herds of Colorado need wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, foxes and predators in general. That has been known for nearly a century. I'm glad East-Slope voters did what was good for Colorado wildlife. Finally.
Federal land does not belong to the ranchers. East-Slope taxes pay more of the cost to manage that land than do West-Slope ranchers with all their complaints. If the West-Slope ranchers must complain, they need to start looking at the big picture of all the taxpayer assistance and pandering they have received for well over a century. And by the way, not all ranchers, even on the West Slope, are opposed to having wolves in Colorado.
