Last week, producers, hunters and interested community members gathered in libraries across Garfield County to discuss wolf and livestock coexistence methods with J. Dallas Gudgell, International Wildlife Coexistence Network policy and tribal outreach coordinator, and Maxwell McDaniel, Wood River Wolf Project field manager. 

McDaniel and Gudgell presented “Coexistence Works! Protecting Livestock and Wolves with Nonlethal Coexistence Methods” in the Parachute, Rifle, Silt, New Castle, and Glenwood Springs branch libraries last Thursday through Saturday in the hopes of beginning a dialogue with Garfield County producers. 

Livestock depredation has been a rising concern for ag producers in Colorado as the state prepares to release up to 15 more gray wolves under Proposition 114, now state statute 33-2-105.8, on the Western Slope this winter. 

“I was absolutely floored. I talk to every person I possibly can about wolves, whether it’s the gas station clerk or a rancher that I’ve met in a bar and so often those conversations go south,” said Rebecca Burkhalter, a Colorado Wild member and ecologist who attended three of the presentations. “These were some of the best conversations that I’ve seen, because we got past us thinking that we’re enemies, and we started talking about how we really are each other’s solution…it turned into, ‘All right. We are actually a community. How can we do this?'”

Gudgell and McDaniel presented information gathered from the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho, which has grazed an average of 22,000 sheep across 282,600 acres while losing fewer than five to wolves annually for more than a decade.

The presenters discussed nonlethal hazing methods such as fladry, fox lights and range riders, and discussed how nonlethal coexistence methods that have been successful in Idaho could be implemented in Colorado.

“Producers should not bear the burden of this process,” Gudgell said. “We wanted producers to know that there are coexistence methods that do work. We can provide the training. CPW and the state should be responsible for providing the tools and equipment and training, if they can. But we can provide the training. We can do site assessment.”

Chance Jenkins, president of the Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association, attended the presentation on Saturday afternoon in New Castle.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the two presenters and the organizer care deeply about wolves and this issue,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we have to agree on everything if we can agree to help each other work through this situation. There isn’t a rancher out there that wants to have a conflict with a wolf.”

Jenkins is concerned that Colorado producers face additional barriers to implementing the nonlethal coexistence methods McDaniel and Gudgell discussed, including different livestock, limited access to range riders and poor communication from the state. 

“Their techniques are mainly tailored to sheep,” Jenkins said on Tuesday. “They stay together, so they can utilize techniques such as the fladry and hazing techniques and the guard dogs. Cattle, when they’re on pasture, don’t congregate together.”

Despite his concerns, Jenkins said he wants to work with the presenters, and plans to have Gudgell conduct a site assessment at his ranch, which is near Silt, in the spring. 

“It met our goals,” Gudgell said. “…Beginning that relationship, that dialogue, talking about the potential for coexistence measures to be used in Colorado.”

“I didn’t know if we’d get it achieved on this trip,” he added. “Some of the producers have invited us back, so that is a really huge step.”