Ranchers in Grand County hit Colorado Parks and Wildlife with a $582,000 bill for wolf kills and related impacts on cattle and sheep in the first year of reintroduction, and they are hoping the sum will convince the parks and wildlife commission to pause the next phase of the program at its meeting in Denver on Jan. 8.
The claims are from three producers and center around attacks on livestock in 2024. A breakdown includes $18,411.71 for confirmed attacks resulting in injury or death of cows, calves and sheep; $173,526.63 for yearling cattle, calves and sheep reported missing from ranches with a confirmed attack or death; $216,772.20 for cattle from said ranches taken to market with a lower-than-normal weight; $172,754.64 for lower conception rates among sheep and cattle on ranches with a confirmed attack or kill; and $515 for one necropsy of a deceased calf.
Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, emailed the claims Tuesday with a letter to CPW commissioners.
In it, he referenced a petition the group submitted in September asking the commissioners to pause wolf reintroduction until CPW completed several tasks. Those included identifying a definition of chronic depredation that CPW could use as a framework in deciding when to kill problem wolves, a widespread range riding program to deter wolves from attacking livestock and a rapid response team to answer reports of problem wolves more expediently.
Coloradans voted by a slim margin in 2020 to bring wolves back to the state. Ten wolves were released in Summit and Grand County in December 2023, and the following year was marked by struggles and some successes.
Currently, only seven of the original 10 wolves are still alive, with one — the female that birthed five pups known as the Copper Creek pack — in captivity with four of the pups. CPW plans to release them and 10 to 15 more wolves, from British Columbia, over the coming months.
Ritschard wrote that stockgrowers “are aware of the Division’s recommendation to deny the citizen petition,” and that they “feel the Commissioners need to have as much information as possible to make this decision.” Included in that information are “the financial damages associated with these three claims” that “could have been much less had the agency taken lethal action on some of the wolves.”
The wolves Ritschard referenced were from the Copper Creek pack, responsible for the majority of livestock deaths in the claims. He told The Colorado Sun, “The big thing we want to say is if the Copper Creek pack would have been managed from the get-go, we would probably be at $20,000 instead of $400,000” in claims from a single ranch in Grand County alone.
But Eric Washburn, a fifth-generation rancher, big-game hunter and member of an ad hoc working group CPW formed last July to advise the agency on policy changes to help promote wolf-livestock coexistence, said he’ll be “stunned” if all of the claims are approved, because “there’s a very good chance that with most or all of these animals that went missing, there’s no proof that wolves had anything to do with it.”
Many forces kill livestock
Washburn said ranchers on average lose between 4% and 5% of their herds annually, and data from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service showed Colorado sheep and lamb producers reported losing 37,000 animals in 2023 to various causes, including predators (18,600 head) and non-predatory factors like disease and weather.
Calves can wander away from their mothers and freeze to death, or die at the hands of an unlucky driver. Officials are also investigating the loss of 187 cattle in Montrose County with theft by rustlers a potential cause.
“But ranchers can’t just walk into CPW and say, ‘Oh, there’s seven wolves in Colorado, and I can’t find, you know, three or four or 100 of my livestock head, so therefore you owe me for all of those.’ That just doesn’t make any sense,” Washburn said.
Ritschard said the livestock in the claims aren’t included “in what we normally lose,” and that the compensation program is structured such that as soon as a rancher receives a confirmed wolf kill status, “the other compensation kicks in.”
“That’s where it’s just kind of interesting … a catch-22 kind of deal,” he said.
Ritschard said a rancher he knows has commented in the past, “‘Now that I have a wolf kill I’m going to be jumping for joy, because guess what? For the next three years I can start claiming all this stuff.’ So, I mean, that’s why you sit there and go, ‘I don’t want a wolf kill,’ but If I have one, all of sudden, here I am. I can start claiming open conception rates, missing animals, stuff like that.”
All claims are investigated before compensation
CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan said all depredation claims are investigated and the agency has 30 days after a claim is submitted to review it. All claims over $20,000 must be approved by the CPW commission, he said, and “there is not a projected claims/compensation amount for the first year of reintroduction.”
Senate Bill 255 created the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund, which received $175,000 in fiscal year 2023-24 and $350,000 in fiscal year 2024-25 to cover depredation claims as well as programs to minimize conflict between wolves and livestock, Duncan added.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, whose district includes several counties on the Western Slope, said if the claims the ranchers submitted are all approved, it would deplete the depredation compensation fund and necessitate CPW dipping into the remaining wolf reintroduction funds for fiscal year 2025, “or CPW would have to do an emergency budget request to the Joint Budget Committee,” he said.
Other animals prey on livestock, including mountain lions and bears. Ranchers in 2023 were paid about $404,000 from CPW’s Game Cash Fund for livestock lost to predators.
Throughout the fall, CPW worked on beefing up its conflict minimization offerings and in December the agency released a definition of chronic depredation and solicitation to hire range riders.
But Ritschard said he thinks the definition of chronic depredation, which specifies the same wolf must have caused “three or more depredation events” within a 30-day period is going to be “tougher for ranchers,” because of a stipulation in the definition stating “a ‘depredation event’ is a 24-hour period in which CPW determines by a preponderance of the evidence that a wolf or wolves caused physical trauma resulting in injury or death to a producer’s livestock or working dogs.”
“But what if a wolf kills 14 sheep one morning and then a couple of hours later they’re at the next ranch and they kill a calf, and then they’re at my ranch and they kill a calf or two, the way we read it, that’s one event,” he said.
Washburn said he doesn’t know if there’s a “geographical limitation” to the chronic depredation definition, “but I mean, has (Ritschard’s example) ever happened?”
Lethal mitigation requires “clear and convincing evidence”
The definition also specifies that there must be “clear and convincing evidence that at least one of the depredation events was caused by wolves” and that the other two events could meet either “clear and convincing” or “preponderance of evidence” standards.
“‘Clear and convincing’ is a higher standard than the preponderance of evidence standard that is typically used for other game damage,” the definition states. “Clear and convincing evidence leaves no room for serious doubt that a wolf or wolves caused physical trauma resulting in injury or death to livestock or working dogs. The Division will find the preponderance of the evidence standard is met when the evidence shows a wolf or wolves more likely than not caused physical trauma resulting in injury or death to the producer’s livestock or working dogs.”
Washburn said CPW modeled its definition after the one the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife uses and that in 2023, when they had more than 200 wolves, “I think they had two lethal removals of wolves, and wolves killed, maybe 15 head of livestock.”
“When I looked at that, I said, if their model is working well, let’s adopt it here and assume it will work here,” he added. “If for some reason these policies don’t work out here, they’re not struck in stone. You know, I think CPW would continue to look at them, and revise them as necessary to get to a point where we have a world-class program that’s limiting depredations to the greatest extent possible.”
Ritschard said he plans to attend the Jan. 8 meeting when the commission will vote on whether or not it will accept Middle Park Stockgrowers’ petition, based on a recommendation by CPW Director Jeff Davis.