Call them hunters or killers or shooters, but don’t call them sportsmen. I refer to those individuals in Wyoming who use electronic calls to lure Colorado wolves across the state line in order to slaughter them. You see, it’s illegal to kill wolves in Colorado. Here they are protected by the Endangered Species Act. But just over the state line in southern Wyoming, wolves can be killed legally, anytime, by any method, with no limit, and no license, tag, or permission required. That’s because Wyoming has designated that area an unregulated “predator zone.”
In the past I’ve written often about wolves, their endangered status, and the ways — legal and illegal — they are killed. There are many hunters and ranchers in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming who can’t wait to kill wolves. Those states have contests to kill as many wolves as possible. Outfitters encourage the killing because wolves prey on elk and deer, the outfitters’ bread and butter. Ranchers kill them because the wolves sometimes kill cattle — even though the states compensate ranchers for losses to wolves.
Many of the wolves come from Yellowstone National Park, where they were reintroduced in 1995 and are protected. Unfortunately, wolves can’t read the signs so they can and do wander outside the park and fall prey to hunters.
In contrast, the last native wolves in Colorado were wiped out in the 1940s. Not until 2020 did a small pack of 6 wolves find its way into northern Colorado, likely having migrated from the Yellowstone area. And no sooner were they discovered and reported than hunters in Wyoming realized that if they could lure those wolves across the line into Wyoming, they could kill them legally. Otherwise, to shoot wolves, they’d have to buy licenses, drive to northwest Wyoming, and hope to find some wayward Yellowstone wolves. It’s so much cheaper and easier to kill Colorado’s wolves. And they have, in some cases within a few hundred feet of the border.
Colorado voters, in 2020, approved the reintroduction of wolves to western Colorado. Since then state officials have approached other states asking for wolves. Only one state, Oregon, agreed to let Colorado officials capture as many as 40 wolves for release here. Presumably the other states want to keep their wolves as targets for local hunters rather than let them go to another state to thrive and multiply.
In any case, we’re going to get our wolves from Oregon before the end of the year. And no doubt Wyoming’s “sportsmen” are already hoping to lure them across the border and kill them. However, they may have to wait a while because the current plan is to release them at least 60 miles south of the state line.
It wouldn’t surprise me if some similarly minded wolf-hating Coloradans, not allowed to kill wolves here, cross the state line to join Wyoming’s hunters in luring and slaughtering our wolves.
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More on this story:
• Wyoming is killing Colorado’s wolves, again, and the state’s keeping it secret
• Border killings: How shooters lured historic Colorado wolves to their deaths in Wyoming
• Report provides clues for ‘when’ and ‘where’ wolves will be released in Colorado
Featured image: Mark Gocke/Wyoming Game and Fish Department
In fact, of course, I am FAR from ‘Liking’ this post: what I do like is your letting us all know of the revolting, unnatural behaviour of this particular group of people with guns. People with guns really want to kill something living with their guns. People with guns cannot simply have guns, they must use them. People with guns are repulsive and disgusting; and learning of their obscene obsession and their tricks to be able to satisfy it doesn’t surprise one iota.
I’ve no objection to subsistence hunting in remote areas. But this isn’t anything like that. This is killing for kicks, just because they can. And they’re killing Colorado’s wolves because it’s cheaper and more convenient than going after those in Wyoming. It’s infuriating.
What a tragic situation! Very sad state of affairs. Your write-up is moving and eloquent and needs wider distribution IMO… Also a non-sequitur question. Are you familiar with KWGN and ‘Morning In Denver.’ ?
Thank you. And no, if I’ve come across KWGN, it was only in passing. I think. I’m really not sure.
Thanks Susan. You may enjoy “Shadow Mountain” by Renee Askins. She was instrumental in getting Wolves introduced to Yellowstone originally and recounts some remarkable Wolf tales.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/117375.Ren_e_Askins
Oh, thank you. I’ll look into that.
It makes me so angry. What’s wrong with people from Wyoming (not all of them, of course)? Could we lure some of the bad ones across the state line and teach them how to be good human beings?
I wish. Maybe we should set up our own wolf lures on this side of the state line and convince the wolves that hunting is great right here in Colorado. Counter lures, so to speak.
Wolf decoys inside the Colorado state line might entice a Wyoming “hunter” to attempt to “harvest” his “trophy.”… Once that line is crossed, doesn’t he or she become a poacher? Aren’t poachers fair game for Coloradoan hunters?
However it might happen, they’d better not be caught on our side of the border. “Poacher” is a dirty word to any law-abiding citizen, and we are zealous about protecting our wildlife.