 The sign in front of the Fort Collins office. | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 6060 Broadway Denver, Colorado |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Colorado Department of Natural Resources |
| Website | cpw |
Colorado Parks and Wildlife manages the state parks system and the wildlife of the U.S. state of Colorado. Responsibilities include state parks, wildlife areas, and the Colorado Natural Areas Program.
Gray wolves are native to North America, [2] including Colorado and were once present across the state. Overhunting of common prey (especially elk) and an increase in livestock numbers forced them into conflict with ranchers. [3] [4] Wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned into local extinction by the 1940s. [5]
While the agency is responsible for wildlife management and hunting, ballot initiatives have allowed Colorado voters to weigh in on some issues. [6] The Commission rejected a proposal to reintroduce the gray wolf in 2016, citing the potential impact on big game and livestock ranching in the state as well as the fact that the national gray wolf population elsewhere had already exceeded federal conservation goals. [7] Resolutions by the Commission opposing reintroduction had also been passed in 1982 and 1989. [8]
With a November 2020 ballot measure, voters directed the Commission to develop a plan to begin to restore and manage wolves by the end of 2023, somewhere on the Western Slope and offer fair compensation for any livestock killed by the predators. The measure designated wolves as non-game, meaning they cannot be hunted. [9]
As of 2023 [update] , there were forty-three State Parks open to the public, including the Cameo Shooting and Education Complex. The 2023 edition of Your guide to Colorado's state parks describes two state parks not included in the total and still in development with limited public access: Lone Mesa and Sweetwater Lake. [10]
As of 2017 [update] , the division managed the 42 state parks [11] and 307 wildlife areas of Colorado.
As of 2016 [update] , the Colorado Natural Areas Program had 93 designated sites which protected more than 250 endangered, rare, or threatened species. [12]
The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is a group of eleven members who are appointed by the Governor of Colorado with legislative approval. The Board is charged with representing various geographic regions of the state while providing oversight and setting agency policy in a democratic way to assure the agency is responsive to the citizens of Colorado. This board meets every other month to review and set policy. [13]
The red wolf is a canine native to the southeastern United States. Its size is intermediate between the coyote and gray wolf.
The wolf, also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gray wolves, as popularly understood, only comprise naturally-occurring wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of the family Canidae, and is further distinguished from other Canis species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller Canis species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The wolf's fur is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white.
The Western Slope is a colloquial term generally understood to describe the part of the state of Colorado west of the Continental Divide. Bodies of water west of the Divide flow toward the Pacific Ocean; water that falls and flows east of the Divide heads east toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Western Slope encompasses about 33% of the state, but has just 10% of the state's residents. The eastern part of the state, including the San Luis Valley and the Front Range, is the more populous portion of the state.
Kenneth Lee Salazar is an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Mexico. He previously served as the 50th United States Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously was a United States Senator from Colorado from 2005 to 2009. He and Mel Martínez (R-Florida) were the first Hispanic U.S. senators since 1977; they were joined by Bob Menendez in 2006. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, he served as Attorney General of Colorado from 1999 to 2005.
Wolf hunting is the practice of hunting wolves. Wolves are mainly hunted for sport, for their skins, to protect livestock and, in some rare cases, to protect humans. Wolves have been actively hunted since 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, when they first began to pose a threat to livestock of Neolithic human communities. Historically, the hunting of wolves was a huge capital- and manpower-intensive operation. The threat wolves posed to both livestock and people was considered significant enough to warrant the conscription of whole villages under threat of punishment, despite the disruption of economic activities and reduced taxes. The hunting of gray wolves, while originally actively endorsed in many countries, has become a controversial issue across the globe. Most people see it as cruel, unnecessary and based on misconceptions, while proponents argue that it is vital for the conservation of game herds and as pest control.
The Mexican wolf, also known as the lobo, is a subspecies of gray wolf native to southeastern Arizona and southern New Mexico in the United States, and northern Mexico. It once also ranged into western Texas. It is the smallest of North America's gray wolves, and is similar to the Great Plains wolf, though it is distinguished by its smaller, narrower skull and its darker pelt, which is yellowish-gray and heavily clouded with black over the back and tail. Its ancestors were likely the first gray wolves to enter North America after the extinction of the Beringian wolf, as indicated by its southern range and basal physical and genetic characteristics.
Wolf reintroduction involves the reintroduction of a portion of grey wolves in areas where native wolves have been extirpated. More than 30 subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, and grey wolves, as colloquially understood, comprise nondomestic/feral subspecies. Reintroduction is only considered where large tracts of suitable wilderness still exist and where certain prey species are abundant enough to support a predetermined wolf population.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin charged with conserving and managing Wisconsin's natural resources. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has the authority to set policy for the WDNR. The WDNR is led by the Secretary, who is appointed by the Governor of Wisconsin. The WDNR develops regulations and guidance in accordance with laws passed by the Wisconsin Legislature. It administers wildlife, fish, forests, endangered resources, air, water, waste, and other issues related to natural resources. The central office of the WDNR is located in downtown Madison, near the state capitol.
The Indian wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf that ranges from Southwest Asia to the Indian subcontinent. It is intermediate in size between the Himalayan wolf and the Arabian wolf, and lacks the former's luxuriant winter coat due to it living in warmer conditions. Within this subspecies, the "Indian plains wolf" is genetically basal to all other extant Canis lupus apart from the older-lineage Himalayan wolf, with both proposed as separate species. The Indian wolf travels in smaller packs and is less vocal than other variants of the gray wolf, and has a reputation for being cunning. The Indian wolf is one of the most endangered populations of gray wolf in the world.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the agency of the state of Michigan fo9unded in 1921, charged with maintaining natural resources such as state parks, state forests, and recreation areas. It is governed by a director appointed by the Governor and accepted by the Natural Resources Commission. Since 2023, the Director is Scott Bowen. The DNR has about 1,400 permanent employees, and over 1,600 seasonal employees.
The Colorado Department of Natural Resources is the principal department of the Colorado state government responsible for the development, protection, and enhancement Colorado natural resources for the use and enjoyment of the state's present and future residents, as well as for visitors to the state.
The history of wolves in Yellowstone includes the extirpation, absence and reintroduction of wild populations of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. When the park was created in 1872, wolf populations were already in decline in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The creation of the national park did not provide protection for wolves or other predators, and government predator control programs in the first decades of the 1900s essentially helped eliminate the gray wolf from Yellowstone. The last wolves were killed in Yellowstone in 1926. After that, sporadic reports of wolves still occurred, but scientists confirmed that sustainable wolf populations had been extirpated and were absent from Yellowstone during the mid-1900s.
The ecology of the Rocky Mountains is diverse due to the effects of a variety of environmental factors. The Rocky Mountains are the major mountain range in western North America, running from the far north of British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the southwestern United States, climbing from the Great Plains at or below 1,800 feet (550 m) to peaks of over 14,000 feet (4,300 m). Temperature and rainfall varies greatly also and thus the Rockies are home to a mixture of habitats including the alpine, subalpine and boreal habitats of the Northern Rocky Mountains in British Columbia and Alberta, the coniferous forests of Montana and Idaho, the wetlands and prairie where the Rockies meet the plains, a different mix of conifers on the Yellowstone Plateau in Wyoming, the montane forests of Utah, and in the high Rockies of Colorado and New Mexico, and finally the alpine tundra of the highest elevations.
The U.S. state of Wyoming faces a broad array of environmental issues stemming from natural resource extraction, species extirpation, non-native species introduction, and pollution. Wildlife species that have been affected by these issues include:
In late December 2011, OR-7, a male gray wolf from Oregon, became the first confirmed wild wolf in California since 1924, when wolves were considered extirpated from the state. The first resident wolf pack was confirmed in 2015, after two adults migrated from Oregon and had five pups. Additional wolves have been tracked during their natural expansion into state, as the Cascade Range, which wolves have repopulated in Oregon, extends south into northern California. In 2021, the state had at least two wolf packs with pups for the first time in over a hundred years. It is likely that other uncollared wolves are dispersing through portions of their historic habitat in California.
Wolf distribution is the species distribution of the wolf. Originally, wolves occurred in Eurasia above the 12th parallel north and in North America above the 15th parallel north. However, deliberate human persecution has reduced the species' range to about one-third, because of livestock predation and fear of wolf attacks on humans. The species is now extirpated in much of Western Europe, Mexico, and the contiguous United States, and completely from the British Isles and the Japanese archipelago. In modern history, the gray wolf occurs mostly in wilderness and remote areas, particularly in Canada, Alaska, the Northern United States, Europe and Asia from about the 75th parallel north to the 12th parallel north. Wolf population declines have been arrested since the 1970s, and have fostered recolonization and reintroduction in parts of its former range, due to legal protection, changes in land-use and rural human population shifts to cities. Competition with humans for livestock and game species, concerns over the danger posed by wolves to people, and habitat fragmentation pose a continued threat to the species. Despite these threats, because of the gray wolf's relatively widespread range and stable population, it is classified as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. In Africa the population of wolves is limited to the northern regions with the African golden wolf north of the Sahara and the Ethiopian wolf in Ethiopia.
In the 1940s, the gray wolf was nearly eradicated from the Southern Rockies. The species naturally expanded into habitats in Colorado they occupied prior to its near extirpation from the conterminous United States. Wolves were reintroduced in the northern Rocky Mountains in the 1990s and since at least 2014, solitary wolves have entered Colorado. A resident group in northwestern Colorado was confirmed in early 2020. In June 2021, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) reported that the first litter of wolf pups had been born in the state since the 1940s. Voters narrowly approved a November 2020 ballot measure that directed the commission that oversees CPW to develop a plan to begin to reintroduce wolves by the end of 2023, somewhere on the Western Slope. The wolves would be managed and designated as a non-game species, meaning they cannot be hunted, with fair compensation being offered for any livestock killed by the predators. Wolves were protected as they are listed as endangered under federal and state law. As part of the reintroduction effort, the federal government in 2023 granted Colorado the authority to manage and kill wolves in specific circumstances. Colorado wildlife officials released 10 gray wolves from Oregon into a remote forest in Grand and Summit counties in late December 2023 as Colorado became the first state where voters directed the reintroduction of gray wolves rather than the federal government.
Grey wolves were considered extirpated from the conterminous United States in the 1940s, but some survived in the remote northeastern corner of Minnesota. After they were listed as an endangered species, they naturally expanded into many of the habitats in the Midwestern states of Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin they had previously occupied. These three states are estimated to have a stable population of 4,400 wolves. The western Great Lakes region they inhabit includes the forested areas of these states, along with the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario. In 1978, wolves were protected under the federal Endangered Species Act as it was determined that they were in danger of going extinct and needed protection to aid their recovery. Management under the Act allowed the remaining wolves in Minnesota to flourish and repopulate northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Wolves were removed from federal protection in January 2021 with management authority remaining with state and tribal authorities. Management plans guide each state's decisions about wolf regulations for hunting, trapping, and culling along with population monitoring, and livestock damage control. In February 2022, a judge ordered federal protections for gray wolves to be restored under the Federal Endangered Species Act which returned management authority to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Colorado Proposition 114 was a ballot measure that was approved in Colorado in the November 2020 elections. It was a proposal to reintroduce the gray wolf back into the state. The proposition was passed with a narrow margin, making Colorado the first US state to pass legislation to reintroduce wildlife.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
