The General Assembly sent a strong message over the last few days to Gov. Jared Polis in footnotes to the proposed state budget: Stop using general fund money to reintroduce wolves to Colorado.
Footnotes to the budget, also known as the long bill, aren’t legally binding. And the spending plan still has a few steps to go before it can be signed into law by Polis.
But if approved, Colorado Parks and Wildlife would be on notice not to use taxpayer money to reintroduce wolves. Instead, lawmakers want the program authorized by voters in 2020 to rely on gifts, grants and donations to complete its work. In the current 2025-26 fiscal year, CPW was given $264,238 from the state’s general fund to bring 15 wolves from British Columbia to Colorado.
The amendments approved by both the House and Senate to add a footnote are the second strong signal that lawmakers seem poised to stop funding wolf reintroduction. In March, the Joint Budget Committee rejected a request from CPW for $450,000 to bring wolves here in the 2026-27 budget, which starts July 1 — nearly double what the program cost last year.
The House amendment was proposed by Rep. Ty Winters, R-Trinidad, and Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs. Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, introduced the Senate amendment.
Ranchers in Lukens’ and Roberts’ districts have dealt with wolves killing their livestock since the state began reintroducing wolves in December of 2023, and the latest wolf activity map released by CPW shows at least one wolf has crossed into watersheds on the western edge of Winter’s expansive district in southeastern Colorado.
No livestock damage claims have been filed in Winter’s district, according to CPW. But Lukens’ constituents in Eagle, Routt, Moffat, Rio Blanco and Gunnison counties have received $24,000 in compensation claims, and Roberts’ constituents in Grand, Jackson and Eagle counties have received many times more than that.
In an email to The Colorado Sun, Lukens said she introduced the amendment because her constituents are already shouldering real impacts of wolf reintroduction.
“At a time when we have competing statewide priorities like education, health care and housing,” Lukens wrote, “I don’t believe it’s appropriate to use general fund dollars to expand a program that remains deeply contentious and costly for rural communities.
“This amendment is about fiscal responsibility and making sure we’re not asking taxpayers across Colorado to subsidize additional releases before we fully understand the impacts of the program.”
The footnote mirrors a restriction passed during the special session in August that blocked CPW from using a similar amount in general funds to buy wolves.
Roberts said he introduced that bill transferring money from the wolf reintroduction program to the health insurance affordability program during the special session in August because people in his district were still dealing with wolf-livestock conflicts and he knew health insurance costs would “go through the roof” in the fall. The bill was co-sponsored by Lukens, Sen. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, and Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista.
Gov. Polis’ office called the measure “a backdoor effort to prevent the will of the voters to establish a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado” without decreasing the deficit “by one penny.” But Polis agreed to the cut, which forced CPW to draw money from a different state cash fund and other nonlicense revenue sources to cover the cost of bringing wolves from British Columbia in January 2025.
There is one difference between that bill and the latest directive from the legislature. The first allowed for new wolves to be introduced using gifts, grants and donations, and with money from the Wildlife Cash Fund if the philanthropic funds were insufficient. “In contrast, our amendment for this year’s budget only allows wolves to be paid for by gifts, grants and donations,” Lukens wrote.
The Wildlife Cash Fund is managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and finances the majority of the agency’s wildlife-related operations. It is primarily funded through the sale of hunting and fishing licenses, with over $155 million appropriated in the 2026-27 fiscal year for species conservation, habitat management and wildlife education.
Conditions — and sentiment — have changed since August
Much has changed on the wolf front since Roberts introduced his bill in August, however.
First, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik blocked CPW from getting more wolves from British Columbia on the premise — later disproved — that the agency broke a federal law in sourcing them from Canada in January 2025.
He then ordered CPW to do a full accounting of every action it has taken to reintroduce wolves since 2023 or he would take over the program.
In early April, Fish and Wildlife published a request for information in the Federal Register asking ranchers, landowners, agencies and other stakeholders to weigh in on how CPW has been implementing the rule that allowed them to introduce wolves to the state as a nonessential experimental population. Federal officials focused on finding out how the state used lethal and nonlethal control measures to both prevent wolf attacks and defend against them.
As a result of these federal actions, the third planned translocation of wolves did not happen. And CPW has yet to receive a go-ahead from Fish and Wildlife.to get more wolves.
CPW Director Laura Clellan has said the agency will bring more wolves to the state by the end of this year no matter what Fish and Wildlife says. That’s why the agency asked the Joint Budget Committee for 450,000 three weeks ago.
Critics say Nesvik’s request for public input is his latest ploy to stop Colorado’s wolf reintroduction, which has consistently exceeded the initial cost estimates provided to voters since the first 10 wolves hit the ground in December 2023.
Some also say the agency has a “math problem” — the funding allocated each year to pay ranchers for impacts to their livestock from wolves isn’t keeping up with the size of damage claims.
Since voter-mandated wolf reintroduction began, Colorado has paid ranchers $1.3 million in compensation claims. But only $875,000 has been allocated for such claims since the program started, and the Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund, which receives $350,000 annually from the general fund to cover both direct (killed/injured) and indirect (reduced weight, lower conception rates) livestock losses, has only around $400,000 left to cover this year’s claims.
Other funding comes from sources unrelated to hunting and fishing license fees, including the Species Conservation Trust Fund and Colorado Nongame Conservation and Wildlife Restoration Cash Fund.
CPW says it has money to pay future claims, but lawmakers who supported the budget footnote say they don’t want ranchers in their districts paying to bring in more wolves that could kill more livestock and create the need for more compensation-claim spending.
“In a time when we are being forced to cut millions of dollars from crucial programs that help Coloradans, spending money for new wolves makes no sense and that is why a large bipartisan majority of Senators voted to return this money to the general fund today,” Roberts said in an email after the vote Wednesday.
But a spokesperson from Polis’ office said the governor “is committed to implementing the law and the will of Colorado voters who passed the gray wolf reintroduction and supports CPW’s successful implementation of the Colorado wolf plan adopted unanimously by the CPW commission.”
Because footnotes aren’t legally binding, state agencies have been known to ignore them.