art credit: Amy Hamilton |
While the humans debate, the wolves have acted on their own. Colorado Parks and Wildlife reports that a pack of at least six wolves now resides in northwest Colorado. Initiative 107 raises a fundamental question about species reintroduction. Should science decide the issue or should the public, which has to live with the consequences of returning an apex predator to a region from which it has been absent for 70 years? The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 is generally seen as a conservation success story; preliminary data showed a beneficial trophic cascade {11.5.17} as a result of wolves preying on too numerous elk browsing the landscape. But since then the effect of wolves on the Yellowstone ecosystem is not considered so clearly beneficial by the scientific community.
Colorado is not Yellowstone. It is steadily growing in population, especially along the Front Range, but growth is also occurring on the once rural western slope of the Rockies, driven by the shale oil boom. There are a lot of human hunters at large too. Whether the reintroduction of wolves in the state would be a good idea from a biological stand point is a question not easily answered. Science is not adept at answering questions of moral value, but the Endangered Species Act of 1973 does speak of intangible values--according to the act endangered species provide “esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation.” The people of Colorado will get a chance to decide whether the welcome mat is out for a once feared and loathed predator. Perhaps this is as it should be in what remains of democracy in the United States. If voters give the green light, the first few wolves will be released to the San Juan Mountains in 2023.