DENVER — Two state laws sum up Coloradans' ambivalence about wolves as well as anything: One still imposes a bounty on the animals, while the other classifies them as wildlife along with deer and elk.
The $2 bounty is a holdover from the days when settlers nearly wiped out wolves in the West. But former state wildlife chief John Mumma discovered Colorado isn't ready to get rid of it, even though killing endangered animals is illegal.
"We went to the Legislature to change that, and we almost got laughed out of there. They said, 'You want to do what?' " Mumma said.
On the other side, a coalition of environmental groups is promoting return of the gray wolf to Colorado, arguing that the predator would help restore the region's ecological balance.
There is plenty of room in the region's roughly 25 million public acres for the wolf, said Mike Phillips, who oversaw return of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park and red wolves to North Carolina.
"The Southern Rockies are considered by many as the last, best place to restore wolves," said Phillips, now with media mogul Ted Turner's endangered species program and head of the Southern Rockies Wolf Restoration Project.
Ranchers who worry about keeping coyotes, mountain lions and bears from their cattle and sheep see no room in Colorado for wolves.
"We're not only opposed to wolves, we are adamantly opposed to any reintroduction," said Ken Morgan, a biologist with the Colorado Farm Bureau. "I don't see that it would bring any good other than to those who want to see and hear wolves in the wild again."
Wolves were eliminated from most of their range in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s. It is believed that the last wolf in Colorado was killed in 1945.
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal would reclassify wolves from "endangered" to "threatened," reducing protection for the animal in much of the West once there are 30 breeding pairs in the Northern Rockies. There are now 25 pairs. The agency does not plan to release any wolves in Colorado to boost the numbers.
"In my personal opinion, wolves will not get here on their own. It's up to Colorado," said Ed Bangs, leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's wolf recovery.
Russell George, executive director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, may find himself caught in the middle if the public demands that wolves be restored to the state.
