‘Ballot not way to manage wildlife’

The previous Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners were very circumspect about the wolf issue. It is not surprising that the proposal to intentionally release wolves was formerly rebuffed.

It was within the framework of both legislative mandate and commission prerogative. Did anyone who voted for Proposition 114 have any knowledge of CPW budget issues? Did they weigh the effects of an additional large predator on ungulate herds? Did the vote include thoughts about new budgets to pay for field investigations, training and administrative tasks?

Did anyone who voted for the wolves know the potential effects on the management of all the other species? No. The answer is “no.”

Gary Skiba’s guest columnist recently glibly dismisses the roll of the hunters and the rural culture that supports our wildlife management, and ignorantly omits the importance of that culture. This does not improve Colorado’s wildlife management. Mobs do stupid things and make big mistakes.

The columnist’s wolf cronies are the product of pure radicalized politics, formed by the belief they can redeem the past. In essence a zealot mob.

Within the wolf matrix, the undisciplined use of words like “trophic cascade” and “restored balance” imply knowledge that just isn’t true. But ignorance accepts it, even as the “wolves change rivers” narrative has crumbled under genuine scientific scrutiny.

Whatever fears or self-loathing it took to believe that wolves will make a better world, it doesn’t serve an inclusive and harmonious society. No, ballot initiative is not the way to manage wildlife.

Steven Curtis Lohr

Niwot