As Colorado looks for ways to cut nearly $1 billion from its budget, some legislators are pondering whether pausing wolf reintroduction efforts could save the state $2.1 million per year. 

It was one of many options the Joint Budget Committee weighed during a budget hearing with the state’s Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday, Dec. 11. 

Funding for wolves

After Colorado voters passed Proposition 114 in 2020 to reintroduce wolves in Colorado, the state’s wildlife agency has received annual allocations from the general fund to implement the measure.

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In the first fiscal year of the effort, 2021-22, Colorado Parks and Wildlife received $1.1 million from the state’s general fund. After spending around $18,000 more than that on wolf-related expenditures, the annual allocation was increased to $2.1 million. However, in the past two years, wolf-related expenses have fallen below the appropriation. In 2022-23, the agency spent around $1.79 million, and in 2023-24 it spent around $1.57 million. 

A Nov. 21 analysis from the Joint Budget Committee staff suggested that a 10% reduction in the general fund allocation for wolf reintroduction could be appropriate as it has reverted more than 10% in the past two years. 

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According to this memo, the budget for the Department of Natural Resources — which includes Parks and Wildlife as well as other state agencies — represents 0.3% of the general fund appropriations in 2024-25. The allocations to this department have increased by 11.5% since 2018-19, an increase driven, first, by allocations to the executive director’s office and, second, by increased funding for wolf reintroduction. 

In addition to reducing the general fund allocation, the staff analysis suggested that the committee could look at cutting the allocations meant for producer compensation from wolf damages. 

The legislature created the Wolf Compensation Depredation Fund in 2023, providing a dedicated source to pay producers for the loss of livestock or working animals by wolves. In the first year, 2023-24, the fund received a $175,000 transfer from the state general fund and is set to receive $350,000 in subsequent years. 

The analysis suggests keeping the allocation at $175,000 for the upcoming year since the fund has not been fully utilized. In 2023-24, Parks and Wildlife received three claims for a total of $3,203 out of 12 total incidents reported. If costs are similar in the upcoming year, the analysis claims that the “fund is unlikely to utilize the full appropriation.” 

Is $2.1 million too much for wolves? 

One of the questions asked of Colorado Parks and Wildlife at Wednesday’s hearing was whether the $2.1 million allocation will continue forever or if a reduction could make sense as the agency shifts from reintroduction to long-term management of the wolves. 

According to Jeff Davis, the executive director of Parks and Wildlife, there is currently no expiration date for this general fund allocation and program costs are likely to increase over time.

What is likely to change is how the money is spent, which in turn “might help us stay within those means,” Davis said, before adding that costs could also increase going forward. 

“It might actually result, as we get more wolves on the ground, in a need for more resources there,” Davis added. 

Specifically, according to its written response, Parks and Wildlife expects both management and depredation costs to increase as the number of wolves in Colorado does. Capture and relocation is “a relatively minor portion” of wolf costs, it adds. 

These resources could come from other places as well, Davis noted. The agency utilizes other fund sources for wolf conflict minimization and restoration efforts, including federal dollars and partnerships with other state agencies. This includes revenue generated by Colorado’s Born to be Wild license plate, grants and programs created in partnership with the Colorado Department of Agriculture and more. 

While costs could increase, Davis also said that having more wolves will make some management decisions easier. With more wolves comes more packs that will establish territories and predictable patterns.

“​​I know it sounds counterintuitive, but as we get packs established with more pairs, then this becomes an easier thing to predict and therefore easier to deploy non-lethal programs and techniques that truly do a better job of avoiding and minimizing conflicts with livestock than we saw this last year,” Davis said. 

Will pausing reintroduction save money? 

The question as to whether pausing reintroduction could save the state the entire $2.1 million a year — asked by the committee’s Vice Chair Rep. Shannon Bird, a Front Range Democrat — received a less clear answer at the hearing. 

This question follows a citizen petition and other requests, including one from all Colorado counties except Denver County, made to Parks and Wildlife to consider a pause in order to get more conflict-mitigation measures implemented before more wolves are introduced. 

On Wednesday, Bird said that her overall concerns about the program were not about the agency’s competency to run the program. 

“I recognize your dilemma and also just want to make clear — I’m very sensitive to making sure we have voter intent, absolutely, and the way we do things has to be sensitive to the people of Colorado, making sure that we are hearing the people on the West Slope (and) in our rural areas, those who actually have to live with the consequences of this ballot initiative,” Bird said. 

Davis told the committee that Parks and Wildlife is “in the process of finalizing, have finalized, or will finalize, addressing all seven of those concerns” listed in the citizen petition. 

“Beyond just livestock, it’s an impact on top of many other impacts that our ranching community and (agriculture) industry tackle or wrestle with every single day, so I don’t want to minimize any of that,” Davis said. “We’ve been listening to understand those concerns of the ranchers and our rural communities while we balance the 50.1% (who) voted yes on Prop 114.”

The department’s written response to Bird’s direct question about a pause indicates that the funding is required by state law. It included the statutory language that “the lack of an appropriation from the general fund shall not halt reintroduction of gray wolves as required by the statute.” 

It adds that the General Assembly is required to “make necessary appropriations to fund the programs authorized and obligations imposed” by the agency’s wolf restoration management plan.   

However, this response isn’t airtight, according to Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican representing Larimer and Weld counties. 

“It just says that we can’t stop halting it to take steps necessary to begin reintroduction of wolves by Dec. 31, 2023,” Kirkmeyer said. “I think, actually, we could pause at this point … As a (Joint Budget Committee), we can look at it that way. Plus, it’s statute, and we can change it if we need to.” 

Before wolves were introduced last December, Colorado legislators did attempt to delay the reintroduction of wolves, passing a bill through both chambers that was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis. 

Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Front Range Democrat and chair of the Joint Budget Committee, indicated that this veto “sent a very poor signal to the legislature about this particular program” and subsequently put the agency in “a much more difficult situation.”

“I think the last year that we’ve seen this program implemented — and what has happened to the wolves that were introduced — has put this program in an even worse light with the legislature in particular,” Bridges said. “And so as we look at a budget where on the table this morning was all sorts of cuts in funding to programs that are desperately needed by low-income Coloradans, that perhaps a program that has had the kind of reception that it has over the last year, that there are a lot of other priorities in the legislature.”

Conversations around the budget will continue up until its final approval during the 2025 legislative session.