This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.com.
Nearly two years after Colorado began reintroducing gray wolves in the western half of the state, at least half of voters say they still support the initiative.
About 53% of registered voters who participated in a poll conducted over the summer said they support wolf reintroduction, while 37% said they oppose it and 10% said they were unsure or had no opinion on the program.
The question was asked as part of a broader statewide poll conducted among 1,136 registered voters from July 30 to Aug. 12 by Magellan Strategies, a conservative-leaning political firm based in Colorado. It had a 2.91 percentage point margin of error.
That margin of error means that, statistically speaking, support among registered voters for wolf reintroduction could be as low as just over 50% or as high as nearly 56%.
Wolf reintroduction was approved by voters through Proposition 114. The 2020 ballot measure passed by about 60,000 voters, or less than a percentage point.
Opponents of the program say the initiative’s narrow passage proves the electorate had mixed feelings about wolf reintroduction. They’ve used the numbers to try to slow or halt the program amid instances of wolves killing livestock.
But the Magellan Strategies poll shows that opinions haven’t really shifted since the initiative passed. If anything, support for wolf reintroduction has only improved.
The survey also revealed that 91% of voters feel informed about wolf reintroduction in Colorado. Six percent said they feel not informed and 3% said they had no opinion or were unsure on how informed they are about wolf reintroduction.
Support for wolf reintroduction was highest among Democrats (74% said they approved, while 14% said they opposed) and lowest among Republicans (30% said they approved and 59% said they opposed). Among unaffiliated voters, a slight majority, 53%, said they support wolf reintroduction.
Additionally, people who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 were much more likely to say they supported wolf reintroduction than those who voted for President Donald Trump.
The survey results were released after a group behind an effort to ask voters in 2026 to repeal Colorado’s wolf reintroduction efforts announced they had failed to make the ballot. Supporters of the initiative couldn’t collect enough signatures to advance their initiative.
The group behind the proposal, Coloradans for Smart Wolf Policy, said they collected about 25,000 voter signatures. They needed roughly 125,000.
The next batch of wolves are scheduled to be released in Colorado at the end of the year or the beginning of 2026.
