More wolves coming to Colorado (not everyone's happy about it)
Read to the end for the unlikely new way scientists discovered a new species of pangolin.
Good morning — thanks so much to the first few of you who have subscribed, and a handful of you who even paid! We’ll find a good conservation cause to donate to at the end of the month and writing this for people, even just the first few, makes it more interesting. If you have any feedback on the format, please let me know — once I get a few more subscribers, I’ll start doing some original interviews and profiles and things like that.
I’m working on a short video about the panda debut at the National Zoo (January 24), and I learned that this panda diplomacy comes with a cost — $1 million per year paid back to China. All pandas anywhere in the world technically belong to China, and this leasing fee goes to conservation efforts back in their home country. And don’t worry — the Smithsonian made clear that tax payers aren’t footing the bill. Money for the panda’s big return comes from private donations, zoo memberships and other sources.
As more wolves get released, Colorado braces for impact
Here in my home state, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is preparing for its next phase of wolf reintroduction, with plans to release an additional 10-15 wolves annually over the next few years. It's the latest chapter in one of the most ambitious — and controversial — wildlife restoration projects in the country. Even the details around the new wolves are hush-hush — officials won’t say where or when exactly the wolves will be released, due to lingering resentment and fear around the wolves and the decision by voters to reintroduce them into Colorado’s landscape.
In November 2020, Colorado voters narrowly approved Proposition 114, requiring the state to reintroduce wolves by the end of 2023. The margin was slim — just 50.9% in favor — but it represented something unprecedented: the first time in U.S. history that voters, rather than wildlife officials, mandated the return of an apex predator. The initial release in December 2023 met that deadline, but the real work of building a sustainable wolf population is just beginning. It’s already been hard — one entire family, the Copper Creek pack, had to be removed from the wild and relocated.
That voting map from 2020 still hangs over and shapes today's challenges. Urban counties along Colorado's Front Range, where most of the state's population lives, voted overwhelmingly in favor. Rural counties, particularly in the Western Slope where the wolves would actually be released, voted strongly against. Moffat County, one rural county that eventually played host to wolves, voted nearly 87% against the proposition.
This urban-rural divide created a challenge. Typically, wildlife reintroduction programs start from within a parks and wildlife department itself and include years of community outreach to build trust and buy-in from local stakeholders. But with a voter mandate and a strict deadline, Colorado had to work backwards — first commit to bringing wolves back, then figure out how to make it work with the communities most affected.
The state's solution? Money, and lots of it. Colorado has created one of the most comprehensive compensation programs ever developed for wolf-livestock conflicts. Ranchers can claim up to $15,000 per animal lost to wolves (compared to $1,600 in Montana), and there's even compensation for indirect losses like reduced conception rates in herds stressed by wolf presence.
But as the program expands, so do the challenges. Compensation claims have exceeded initial projections, and verifying wolf kills has proven challenging in the vast ranchlands of western Colorado. (With payouts so high, some argue it sets an incentive for ranchers to claim livestock killed by wolves, even if the actual cause may be something else.) There’s an emotional toll for ranchers too, finding livestock that have been attacked but not killed, requiring humane euthanization.
Some of the wolves are adapting well. GPS collar data shows they're finding prey and establishing territories, exactly as wildlife officials hoped. And there's compelling evidence from Yellowstone about the broader benefits they might bring: when wolves returned there, they helped control elk populations that had been overbrowsing vegetation, leading to a revival of aspen groves and even changing the course of rivers. (Opponents of the wolf program in Colorado argue that the environment here is different than in Yellowstone, and we can’t assume the same successes.)
The state's goal is ambitious: a population of 150-200 wolves by 2028. Each new release will be watched closely not just by Coloradans, but by wildlife officials across the country. The success or failure of this experiment in ballot-box ecology could shape how we approach wildlife restoration for decades to come.
It’s worth noting that in the most recent election, Colorado voters opted against a blanket ban of hunting mountain lions, bobcats and lynx and left that control in the hands of Colorado Parks and Wildlife management. Opponents of the ban argued that it would have undermined science-based wildlife management, one of the criticisms consistently levied against the wolf reintroduction as well.
Quick links!
As the fires in Los Angeles continue to rage, there’s an impact on local wildlife too. NBCLA has footage of a mountain lion and its cubs fleeing from fire down Topanga Canyon Boulevard earlier this week. A study of mountain lions after the 2018 Woolsey Fire found the fire caused them to take more risks — increasing the number of times they crossed roads and major highways and forcing them to be more active during the day, while simultaneously reducing the vegetation they use for hiding.
Jetstar Asia just announced direct flights to Labuan Bajo, Indonesia — the tiny town (7000 people) that serves as gateway to hanging out with the world's largest lizards. The twice-weekly flights starting March 20 will make it much easier to visit Komodo National Park, home to several thousand endangered Komodo dragons. But there's a catch: as tourism grows — in part due to encouragement from the Indonesian government to get people to go anywhere else other than Bali — park officials are considering regular closures to protect these deadly lizards, which exist nowhere else in the wild.
Scientists in northeastern India just discovered a new species of pangolin in an unexpected way: by analyzing DNA from confiscated wildlife trafficking specimens. The Indo-Burmese pangolin had been hiding in plain sight in the states of Arunachal Pradesh and its neighbor, looking so similar to its Chinese cousin that even poachers couldn't tell them apart. At over 3.5 feet long, these scaly mammals are already among the world's most heavily trafficked animals — their scales used in traditional medicine, particularly in China and Vietnam. (Naturally, no scientific benefit has been proven.)
So interesting!!!