Colorado ranchers face tough season: drought, wildfires and wolves

From Colorado Public Radio:

The eastern Colorado rangeland where Curt Russell, the new president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, summers his herd of 150 Simmental cows lies far from the spotlight. As far as the headlines are concerned, the biggest issues facing the state’s ranchers are extreme drought, lingering wildfires and — most prominently — wolves.

Those are Western Slope issues. The last president of CCA, Tom Harrington, had his livestock attacked by wolves near Aspen. But out here, near tiny and unincorporated Karval, the only wild dogs are coyotes, and the rain has been plentiful.

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Vancouver Island photographer granted two-year fellowship to study and protect B.C.’s sea wolves

From CTV News:

With his striking portraits, Vancouver Island wildlife photographer Ryan Tidman has made strides in the work to raise awareness of the sea wolf species that inhabits B.C.’s coastline – and yet he’s only just beginning to scratch the surface.

Last month Tidman was named as the inaugural Audain Wildlife Conservation Fellow, a two-year appointment established by The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and supported by the Audain Foundation, that will enable research into the at-risk species.

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Wolves in Europe: From conservation icon to political flashpoint

From Belga News Agency:

For decades, the EU has used the grey wolf as an example of how nature can recover if it is given protection and space. Today, however, this success story is unravelling.

From Brussels to the forests of Belgium, Sweden, Italy and Poland, the wolf has been transformed from a conservation icon into a lightning rod in Europe’s culture wars, pitting city dwellers against rural communities, farmers against environmentalists, and fact against fear.

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DNA Reveals Diet and Prey of Wolves and Lynx

From Bioengineer.org:

In a groundbreaking study published in Front Zool, researchers undertook a molecular analysis of scats to illuminate the diet and prey preferences of grey wolves and Eurasian lynxes inhabiting the transition zone between the Dinaric Mountains and the Alps. This crucial investigation not only sheds light on the feeding behavior of these apex predators but also offers valuable insights into the broader ecological dynamics of the region, which includes their impact on local prey populations.

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Encore: Tracking Wolves in Italy

From NPR:

In this encore episode, we hear about the return of wolves to Europe.  After being hunted to near extinction, they have made a population comeback in recent decades with the help of conservation efforts. Now, the country with the most wolves in Europe is Italy. Our correspondent in Rome sets out for the Italian forest with an organization that takes small groups to try to see wolves in the wild.

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‘The wolf is not the bad guy’: working with [Mexico] farmers to protect a reintroduced species

From Nature.com:

Carmen García-Chávez monitors the activities of wolves after their reintroduction to Chihuahua, northern Mexico.

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A Multispecies Data Logger for Wildlife Research and Conservation

From Hackster:

Animals communicate with signals that range from simple visual cues to complex vocalizations and gestures. Intraspecies and interspecies communication has been studied extensively in birds, dolphins, dogs, primates, and other animal species.

The field is beleaguered with challenges. Data is hard to obtain, and animal communication signals are often difficult to interpret objectively. However, with advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can begin to make sense of the chirps, calls, whines, and other signals animals communicate.

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Researchers with Minnesota’s Voyageurs Wolf Project capture and collar their first black wolf

From Outdoor News:

It’s not every day you see a black wolf roaming the wilds of northern Minnesota in and around Voyageurs National Park near the Canadian border. As wilderness happenings go, it’s a rare occurrence. That’s the word from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which reported the black wolf Aug. 8 on its social media platforms after collaring the animal as part of its ongoing wolf research at the 218,000-acre Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem (which includes Voyageurs National Park).

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Wolf movement continues across Western Colorado and some Front Range watersheds in new map

From The Aspen Times:

Colorado’s collared gray wolves are primarily sticking to Western Slope watersheds, with some exploration toward the east.

In the latest map from Colorado Parks and Wildlife — which shows the watersheds where the state’s collared gray wolves were located between July 22 and Aug. 26 — wolves checked out northwest areas in Routt, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Grand, Summit, Eagle, Lake, and Pitkin counties.

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Group looking to end wolf reintroduction in Colorado fails to collect enough signatures for 2026 ballot measure

From Colorado Sun:

A group seeking to end wolf reintroduction in Colorado says it’s going back to the drawing board after failing to collect the voter signatures needed to get a measure on the November 2026 ballot.

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