During the past few years, there have been very few issues involving the wilderness in the Colorado mountains. That is, until November of 2020, Colorado is in the process of reintroducing self-sustaining Grey Wolves. In 2020, the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Project successfully petitioned for the vote to bring back Grey wolves. The reason for this was to restore ecosystem balance; they wanted to give the wolves a fair chance at life just as other animals have. Sophomore Jevan Woolery shares his frustration with this decision: “I don’t like the idea of this because it runs off our herds for elk season and gives us a worse chance at getting the one we want.” The reintroduction of grey wolves can affect elk hunters very much by changing the movement of the herd and making them harder to find. The more elk we lose, the fewer hunting tags there will be available. Woolery’s family is big into hunting, and he expresses that when his family heard about this decision, they were not thrilled, and it brought concern. Hunters are debating on the places to hunt and when to get tags because the Gray wolves will make it more of a struggle than it used to be.
The first sighting of wolves was on January 2, 2024, in Grand County near Boulder, Colorado. It was a lone collard wolf, and someone saw it as it ran in front of their car. At the end of the year in 2024, about 30 wolves were released in Eagle and Pitkin Counties. They have made their way to the North and West parts of Colorado and are slowly making their way towards the Grand Valley. We have yet to hear news about Grey wolf sightings in the Valley, and we hope not to have that problem for a while.
