Last February a friend and I were standing on the Illinois River Overlook, just south of Walden, training our binoculars on North Park. We were looking for interesting birds.
But that’s not what captivated our attention.
A mile off, but still too close for comfort, we spotted two leggy beasts patrolling the grasslands. One of them had a creature hanging limply in its jaws.
Death on the high prairie.
At first, we thought they were coyotes. But they looked too tall, too feral, too imposing–with a ruff of fur standing around their necks, dinner-plate paws, and predatory jaws. And that’s when the hairs on our necks stood up. We were meeting our new neighbors here in Colorado: gray wolves, down from Wyoming. And the sheep and the ranchers are nervous. Justifiably so.
On December 8th, Colorado Parks and Wildlife were to begin introducing a dozen new wolves west of the Continental Divide. Our wolves would be darted and captured in Oregon, then flown to Colorado to find new homes in the Centennial state.
Who am I to judge newcomers? I’m an introduced species here, myself—from the wilds of Pennsylvania. And this whole wolf thing is kind of my fault. I voted them in, after all.
I first read Jack London’s Call of the Wild as a kid growing up in suburban Connecticut. The only wildlife that menaced me there were my three older brothers. So London’s tale of Buck, the domestic dog who taps his latent wolfishness to lead a pack in Alaska, put wild ideas into my head. I wanted to ditch my identity as a domesticated human living near a mall. I yearned to howl like Buck, to sing–as London wrote–“a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.”
Ironically, I would sing that song in the safety of a voting booth in Fort Collins, in November 2020. Proposition 114 passed with 50.91% of the vote–a squeaker by any measure. And if you look at the map of the results, you’ll see a sea of red–the “no” votes–surrounding a few green islands–where the “yes” voters live. The pro-wolf people are largely Front Rangers like me, who, when they crave a thrill, pilot their Jeep Cherokees through the drive-thru at Starbucks.
But most residents of Grand, Montrose, Routt, Gunnison, Garfield, and Rio Blanco counties–places canis lupus will soon be calling home–were staunchly opposed, piling up anti-pluralities from 54 to 64%. Voters from Pitkin county were broadly in favor of welcoming new, carnivorous neighbors, to which the rest of their western Colorado neighbors would probably say: “Here, take ours.”
But we cozy Foothills denizens shouldn’t feel too comfortable: CPW officials note that, though the wolves will be introduced west of the divide, they’ll surely find their way east of it as well.
Uh oh.
Meanwhile, Walden’s newest residents–like the wolf my friend and I caught in the bloody act–have been picking off family dogs and defenseless cattle. Neither of those animals are eligible to vote, but maybe they should be.
That’s the tension of life in Colorado, isn’t it? We share a collective appreciation for our state’s wildness, but we’re shocked–shocked!--when a mountain lion snacks on little Fifi in the hills above Boulder. Maybe Fifi’s owners have it coming, if they insist on living in the predation zone.
At the end of 2023, increasing numbers of us will be hearing, and fearing, the call of the wild. Those Oregon wolves will form packs, find mates, and their wolf pups will populate Colorado.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has provided helpful tips, in the unlikely event that you encounter a hungry wolf.
1. Stand on a stump and open your jacket, so you look more imposing than you actually are.
2. Look at the beast; direct eye-contact is always creepy.
3. If attacked, do not fall on the ground and cry “Mommy!”, as I would.
Vulnerability makes wolves drool, so by all means fight. If all else fails, back slowly into a voting booth, close the curtain, and reassess your decision to vote for apex predators.
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Peter Moore is a writer and illustrator living in Fort Collins. You can hear, and see, more of his work at kunc.org.
