From Sky Hi News:
Colorado’s annual budget proposal, which largely prioritizes education and health care, also includes several proposals that are of specific interest to residents of the Western Slope. The budget, which is not yet finalized, includes funding for non-lethal wolf deterrence, water litigation and wildlife management.
The six-member Joint Budget Committee, which writes the state budget, settled on a $40.6 billion budget that would take effect July 1. Statewide highlights for the draft budget include full funding of the state’s k-12 education system for the first time since the Great Recession and pay bumps for state healthcare workers.
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Evers vetoes bill seeking statewide population goal for wolves
From Wisconsin Public Radio:
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed a Republican bill that would have ordered state wildlife regulators to set a statewide population goal for wolves.
The legislation was introduced by Sen. Rob Stafsholt, R-New Richmond, and Rep. Chanz Green, R-Grand View, after the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources nixed a population goal in an update of its wolf management plan.
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Native-carnivore bill would tie depredation compensation to coexistence strategies
From The Aspen Times:
Colorado state Rep. Tammy Story stepped into the world of gray wolves during last year’s legislative session when Western Slope lawmakers pushed forward Senate Bill 256, a bill potentially delaying wolf reintroduction if a federal plan was not finalized that would allow lethal control of wolves that preyed on livestock.
The bill was introduced less than a month before the end of the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 10(j) Rule. That rule, implemented late last year, designated gray wolves a nonessential experimental species in the state, meaning they could be legally killed if they killed livestock. Wolf-reintroduction proponents thought SB 256 was redundant and an end run around the will of the voters.
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Bill seeks to help wolves, which can be mistaken for coyotes
From Times Union:
ALBANY — A new bill aimed at protecting wolves in New York proposes collecting more data from the hunters and trappers who could mistakenly kill the endangered animals when believe they are coyotes, which can be legally hunted.
State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a sponsor of the legislation, noted that wolves are mistakenly killed despite being designated as an endangered and protected species under state and federal laws.
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Wolves, water and wildlife: How will this year’s state budget impact the Western Slope?
From Sky Hi News:
Colorado’s annual budget proposal, which largely prioritizes education and health care, also includes several proposals that are of specific interest to residents of the Western Slope. The budget, which is not yet finalized, includes funding for non-lethal wolf deterrence, water litigation and wildlife management.
The six-member Joint Budget Committee, which writes the state budget, settled on a $40.6 billion budget that would take effect July 1. Statewide highlights for the draft budget include full funding of the state’s k-12 education system for the first time since the Great Recession and pay bumps for state healthcare workers.
Click here for the full story.
A Tale of Two Revivals: How Yellowstone Helped Return Wolves to Colorado
From Mountain Journal:
Since late last December, 10 wolves, captured in eastern Oregon and transported to Grand and Summit counties by plane, have roamed western Colorado. They’re among the first of their kind to inhabit the Centennial State since the 1940s, when wolves were exterminated to make room for livestock. All wear satellite collars, which broadly tell biologists where the animals have been headed since their release: west into Moffat County, and north toward Wyoming. Sightings have been scant, but presumably they’ve been chasing elk through snowdrifts, scrounging rodents and other small prey, howling across sagebrush steppes and pinyon forests. In short, they’re being wolves.
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Here’s where Colorado’s new wolves roamed in March as they expanded their territory
From Canon City Daily Record:
Colorado’s reintroduced wolves continue to roam widely across the state in the last month, though wildlife officials who released a tracking map said the geolocating collar for one of the canines was no longer working.
The 12 wolves known to live in Colorado, including 10 released in December, spent time in a large swath of the state, according to a new map of wolf activity released Wednesday by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
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UMN experts say wolves are not cause of decrease in deer population
From The Minnesota Daily:
A hunter lobbying group is pushing for gray wolves to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act after a poor deer hunting season, though experts at the University of Minnesota say other factors are to blame.
According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the 2023 deer hunting season saw around 158,600 deer killed by hunters, an 8 percent decrease from the previous season and a 14 percent decrease from the five-year average.
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Wildlife managers report first possible wolf pack sighting in NV in over 100 years
From Nevada Current:
State wildlife managers reported a possible wolf pack sighting in Nevada for the first time in over 100 years on Wednesday.
Last week, a helicopter crew conducting an aerial moose survey spotted three suspected wolves traveling together in northeast Nevada near Merritt Mountain, north of Elko. State wildlife biologists are now working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to confirm the sighting of one of Nevada’s most iconic native carnivores.
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GPS collars on 2 wolves in Colorado are not functioning properly, but they are still alive, CPW says
From Denver 7 News:
DENVER — A collar on a released gray wolf in Colorado is no longer providing a signal and another collar is partially functioning and may fail soon, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a Wednesday update about the animals’ activity.
CPW said its biologists are no longer seeing a signal from one of the collars placed on a wolf transplanted from Oregon, however they can tell that it is traveling with a second wolf, which does have a functioning collar. CPW officials have seen the wolf with the malfunctioning collar from an airplane, so they have confirmed it is still alive, the agency said.
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New ruling pares down wolf trapping season in Sawtooths, northern Idaho
From Idaho Mountain Express:
A federal court ruling issued Tuesday, March 19, considerably shortened wolf trapping and snaring seasons in four of seven regions of Idaho over concerns that more grizzly bears could be maimed or killed by wolf snares.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Candy Dale’s summary judgment last week came in response to a lawsuit initially filed by Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project and a dozen other conservation and animal welfare groups in December 2021.
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