A Native American tribe in Washington that promised 15 wolves to Colorado has rescinded its offer saying the state has not honored concerns of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe involving wolf reintroduction.
Since soon after Colorado voters approved reintroducing wolves west of the Continental Divide, the Southern Ute Tribe has been trying to get Colorado Parks and Wildlife to acknowledge the tribe’s sovereignty in managing wolves on its land under an agreement covering hunting and fishing in the southwest corner of the state.
But the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Nation says a lack of agreement between the Southern Utes and the state is a deal-breaker. On June 6, Jarred-Michael Erickson, chairman of the Colville Business Council, wrote a letter to CPW Director Jeff Davis saying the Colville Tribes were withdrawing their resolution because “necessary and meaningful consultation was not completed with the potentially impacted tribes” when the state created and implemented its wolf reintroduction plan.
The Southern Ute Tribe’s concerns date back to at least 2020, when the tribal council approved a resolution drafted by its wildlife advisory board to oppose reintroduction.
The resolution cited potential impacts on both the Southern Ute Reservation and in the Brunot Agreement Area, approximately 3.7 million acres of the San Juan Mountain region the confederated bands of Utes were forced to cede to the federal government in 1873.
Included in the 1873 Agreement was a provision reserving the right of Utes to “hunt upon said land so long as the game lasts and the Indians are at peace with the white people.” In 2008, the Southern Ute Tribe entered a historic agreement with CPW that expressed the intent of both governments to work cooperatively toward long-term conservation of wildlife within the Brunot Area. The Brunot Area Hunting Proclamation, which includes bag limits and permit numbers, is updated yearly.
The 2020 resolution to oppose reintroduction cited the impact of wolves on tribal members’ livelihoods, livestock on the reservation and wildlife including elk, deer and Shiras moose. Steve Whiteman, a fish and wildlife biologist who was wildlife division head for the Southern Ute Tribe from 2002 to 2022, represented the tribe on the stakeholder advisory group that presented recommendations concerning reintroduction to CPW.
Among key recommendations were recognizing “the Brunot Agreement lands (i.e., consideration of management and Tribal consultation needs)” and developing “new intergovernmental agreements or memoranda of understanding with Tribes.”
But the Colville Tribe’s letter indicates CPW hasn’t done enough.
As reintroduction efforts continued to move forward, the tribe in 2021 sent a letter to CPW communicating its concern that wolf restoration would “present an unacceptable risk to our hunting resources.” The letter highlighted the problem of declining elk calf numbers in the San Juan Basin, attributed to drought, habitat loss and degradation, disease, recreation impacts and other predators.
“Additional pressure from an apex predator like the wolf would likely drive down the elk population further and reduce hunting opportunities,” the letter said. “Any effort at wolf population management will only be possible many years into the future.”
Tribal officials also were concerned big-game populations could be severely impacted by then, reducing hunting opportunities in the Brunot Area. They were critical of CPW’s “arbitrary compensation cap” on livestock lost to depredation. They wanted assurance of critical funding for a restoration program, research and monitoring, education and outreach as well as a conflict mitigation and compensation program.
And they said that while the wolf management plan signaled “support of tribal self-determination and self-governance,” they wanted CPW to recognize a “broader recognition of tribal sovereignty” through the adoption of a tribal management plan or MOU that would govern the management of gray wolves on the reservation and Brunot Area.
The tribe sent another letter on Feb. 22, 2023, the last day for the public to submit comments on the proposed wolf management plan. By then the agency had held five public meetings about the proposal to hear community feedback, with a meeting in Gunnison being the closest to the Southern Ute Reservation. That letter mentioned the June 4 letter as well as a request by Melvin J. Baker, chairman of the Southern Ute Tribe, asking CPW to limit releasing wolves to the Interstate 70 corridor north of the Brunot Area.
In fact, the first five wolves were released Dec. 18 north of I-70 on state land in Grand County. Another five were released Dec. 23 in Grand and Summit counties, also north of I-70.
As of July 23, some of the wolves had ranged north to the Colorado-Wyoming border, east into Larimer and Clear Creek counties, west into western Routt and Rio Blanco counties, but only as far south as the border of Eagle County and Lake County, according to CPW’s Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map.
However, CPW’s planned release area includes Montrose and Gunnison counties south of I-70 to the northern border of the Brunot Area. That may be one reason the Colville Tribe decided to rescind its offer of Washington wolves to the agency. Representatives did not respond to requests for an interview.
In early May, Southern Ute Tribe council member Andrew Gallegos gave the CPW commission a presentation about the history and establishment of the Ute reservations, the Brunot Area, wildlife management and the Brunot hunting program. Some key takeaways were the need for a strong government-to-government relationship and that the tribes know how to best manage their resources.
But the Colville Tribe in its June 6 letter wrote: “It is further recommended that all directives regarding the request from the State of Colorado that the Tribes provide wolves, that were passed up to the date of this recommendation be rescinded, including, but not limited to those passed on Sept. 19, 2023, and Oct. 3, 2023.”
The Colville Tribe’s natural resources and wildlife division notified CPW staff members of the tribe’s intent to rescind its offer June 6 and sent the letter to Davis on June 11, Gonzales said in an email.
“Because the original agreement has only been rescinded at this time and does not close the door to future conversations or opportunities to work with the Tribe, CPW chose not to release this information,” she said.
State statute doesn’t require the agency to share communications with the public, but some ranchers are unhappy about CPW withholding this one.
“I guess it isn’t part of their building back trust program,” Grand County Commissioner Meritt Linke said, referring to promises Davis made during a commissioners meeting Jan. 25. “Once again, I would question what would be the benefit of keeping this secret. It’s really not about wolves anymore. It’s about politics.”
Davis said in a statement last week that while the Colville Business Council, tribal government and natural resources committee’s decision is “disappointing,” “we have a “strong relationship” with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and “hope to continue these conversations in the future.”
CPW will continue working with other potential sources for wolves and isn’t “contemplating halting our implementation of the plan,” he said.
On Aug. 2, the Southern Ute Tribe released a statement on Colville’s decision, saying that since the passage of gray wolf reintroduction, the tribe has been “actively engaged in collaborative efforts” with CPW and the attorney general’s office to address its concerns “including potential impacts of wolves on livestock, deer and elk herds, and the exercise of Brunot Area hunting rights reserved for Tribal Members.”
“The Southern Ute Indian Tribe deeply values its progressive and strong relationship with Colorado Parks and Wildlife,” it continued, “and will continue to collaborate with them to establish a framework for working together that enables the state to implement its reintroduction program while simultaneously recognizing the sovereign authority of the Tribe on tribal lands and the interest shared by the Tribe and the state in the Brunot Area.”
In an email Aug. 2, CPW said, “the nature of tribal governance and state/federal governance can present valuable learning opportunities. CPW is committed to working with our tribal partners to find solutions and move forward.”
Meanwhile, the agency has other pressing matters to address, including the confirmed killing of eight sheep by wolves in Grand County on July 28.
In news pleasing to wolf advocates, on July 19, Rocky Mountain Wild’s Colorado Corridors Project captured the first official documented image of an introduced wolf staring directly into a camera on Vail Pass. (Ranchers have many of their own images.)
At its commissioners meeting the same day, Reid DeWalt, CPW’s deputy director, announced the members of a new ad hoc working group formed to focus on “promoting and scaling up nonlethal wolf deterrent measures while providing additional resources to ranchers affected by reintroduction.”
The group includes ranchers, wolf advocates, hunters and a rangeland wildlife conflict specialist along with Davis, DeWalt, CPW wolf biologist Eric Odell, Dustin Chiflett from the Colorado Department of Agriculture and Travis Black, CPW’s northwest region manager.
