09/17/2026
🐺 About 6 years ago, it was decided that wolves should be taken from their packs and brought to Colorado.
💔 Fewer than half are still alive.
📄 Yes, that decision was carried largely by Front Range voters in Denver, Boulder, and Jefferson counties. But most people who voted yes simply wanted to see wolves living in Colorado again.
🫨 But once the measure passed, the state had to figure out how to actually make that happen.
⏱️ That job fell to CPW, which stands for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. They are basically Colorado’s official outdoor team. They help take care of the state’s parks, wildlife, and nature.
📆 And they had a very short amount of time to bring wolves back to Colorado.
🐏 The chair of the CPW Commission was worried they were moving too fast. He urged the governor to give the science and planning process more time. He says the governor's response was to not reappoint him.
🚁 Thus, the program marched on with the rushed timeline. Each wolf was located from a helicopter, darted, placed in a crate, and transported hundreds of miles to a place he or she had never seen before.
🐾 Wolves are very social animals. They form strong bonds with their family groups, so being captured, separated, and transported is highly stressful.
🌲 Once released into unfamiliar country, they had to quickly learn where to find food, water, shelter, and other wolves. Until they paired up or formed packs, they also faced greater risks from injury, hunger, and other dangers.
📉 In January 2026, the breeding male of the King Mountain pack died during a Colorado Parks and Wildlife collaring operation. Two months later, the pack’s mother, one of the original wolves brought from Oregon, was also gone.
⚠️ CPW has also had to lethally remove multiple wolves, including young ones, after repeated livestock conflicts.
🎙️ Mike Herne is asking why an animal living a settled life had its fate decided in a Colorado voting booth.
🐺 If you voted yes in 2020 because you cared about wolves, we respectfully ask you to weigh what ballot-box wildlife management costs animals before the next wildlife question reaches your ballot.
