The tea leaves of change often times provide a pathway to discover new political power for one group or another. So as the leaves of Colorado change color to the coming of winter in the fall this year, the recent early November election results provide the proof of a slowly evolving political power shake-up in the Centennial State.
For almost six years the political power brokers in Denver have wagered a deliberate and severe pronged attack on agriculture in Colorado. Attacks on water rights for agricultural uses, the challenge of environmental and anti-private property groups challenging historically deeded river bottom land ownership, new corner crossing laws restricting physical barriers to discourage the trespassing practice, the governor’s infamous “meat out” day and attempted support of the unhealthy chemical fake meat industry, electric car and truck mandates which make no sense for rural transportation needs, significantly increased registration fees singling out farm trucks and trailers, and attempts to outlaw slaughter houses and fur sales in the City of Denver.
All these political challenges pale to the disastrous roll out of the wolf reintroduction process, fraught with inappropriate political influence from the governor and his unelected partner. Many recent articles from the press list the various mistakes made culminating in an attempt by the cattle producers to delay the planned reintroduction of Canadian wolves into Colorado. No need to list all of the well-known grievances here.
When the winds of change begin to blow, the eagles must fly.
Agricultural and ranching Colorado, which dominates most of private land in the state, geographically surrounding the urban front range, have begun to wake up and organize. The group has become “more hardened” and battle tested. With the recent rebuff by Colorado voters of Proposition 127 proposing to ban hunting of mountain lions, all counties but the six mostly along the front range voted overwhelmingly against with 55.5% of all Coloradans against the ban. Even the liberal citizens of Denver voted against the ban of fur sales and slaughter houses, saving significant minority owned and based jobs.
With the prevailing winds shifting, it is time for agriculture to band together and “flex our muscles” on the wolf issue. Strongly worded letters to the governor’s office and petitions are helpful but are generally ignored by the controlling bureaucracy. Fladdery, those miles of flags around calving pastures, range riders, shooting off canons and other nonlethal deterrents are helpful for public relations, but the continued importation of wolves from outside Colorado is the actual threat to ranching livelihood on the western slope.
After a few years the state of Oregon was smart enough to understand that legalizing all hard drugs in the state was a disastrous law, even the state of California was smart enough to realize that allowing thieves to walk into small and large retail businesses and walk out with almost a thousand dollars of the store owner’s and employee’s merchandise was not a sustainable endeavor. Now it’s Colorado’s turn to correct a mistake and a badly conceived law passed by only a 2 percent margin (15,000 votes out of 3 million cast). The wolf reintroduction 2020 Citizens initiative 114 while honorable in it’s intent, has been an early disaster for ranchers on the Western slope, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife, a significant number of well over 30 dead cattle including calves, and even the “cattle eating” wolves sent from Oregon which had to be “removed” from the range. Seven of 10 are no longer roaming the countryside.
The agricultural community, including political representatives in the 58 of 64 Colorado counties must band together, organize, fund raise and propose a new citizen’s ballot initiative to change the existing wolf reintroduction law. Put your time, money and effort into real action. The new initiative should be crafted to stop all government importation of wolves from out of state, allow wolves in the state or future migrating naturally into the state to be protected for a prescribed time (unless caught and proven to be in the act of attacking livestock, livestock guard dogs or pets, and of course, kids and people). Let the good people and professionals of the CPW do their job without overbearing political influence. I believe given all the facts, with a well organized campaign, the citizen’s of Colorado could reverse course and pass a win-win initiative for both agriculture and wolves.