<story><title>Colorado wolf reintroduction to move forward</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-12-colorado-wolf-reintroduction-ranchers-legal.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DavidPastrnak</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a resident of Estes Park, Colorado, what is essentially Rocky Mountain National Park, and my partner in life is a biologist in RMNP where she tracks and monitors elk and moose populations. This has been on the forefront of our minds for awhile. While I’ll leave my personal opinion out of it, I do want to add a couple of notes.&lt;p&gt;Wolves have been crossing the boarder into Colorado for some time - the state is not completely void. Additionally, they have already released a handful in the last couple of weeks that were brought in from the PNW.&lt;p&gt;The topic of reintroduction is extremely complex and has led to heated and polarizing debates with residents across the state - even stretching into Wyoming politics where hunters are using electronic calls to lure them back across the border for hunting. This has resulted in a lot of confusion as to what the research outlines.&lt;p&gt;If anyone is curious, I have found this paper to be a great introduction to the topic. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;epdf&amp;#x2F;10.1111&amp;#x2F;csp2.413&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;epdf&amp;#x2F;10.1111&amp;#x2F;csp2...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please remember that this is an extremely complex issue that is worth having constructive discussion on. I have faith that HN can keep it civil where other platforms have failed to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>perrygeo</author><text>Thanks David. I&amp;#x27;m just a few miles downhill (Masonville) and I agree that it&amp;#x27;s a complex issue. The intentional introduction of any species raises many ethical questions. Humans have completely altered the ecosystem by removing wolves over the last 100 years. We understand this now, and the &amp;quot;reintroduce wolves to restore the ecosystem&amp;quot; reaction is a very reasonable public response. But it&amp;#x27;s only a start, let&amp;#x27;s not get distracted by charismatic megafauna.&lt;p&gt;We cannot pin ecosystem health on the presence&amp;#x2F;absence of a single species. This is not ecosystem restoration, it&amp;#x27;s a political accounting trick to manage species counts ... and pretend that&amp;#x27;s a proxy for a balanced ecosystem (without understanding habitat fragmentation and loss, energy and nutrient cycling, climate change pressures, etc). So the challenge is, can we sustain an ecosystem to support new wolves and ourselves?&lt;p&gt;To those of us who want to produce the land for economic gain - I applaud you, homo economicus. But when our market demands every last watt of productivity be directed to human markets, there&amp;#x27;s not much room to allow wolves to roam amongst livestock. If you&amp;#x27;re competing in the modern financialized agriculture markets, you&amp;#x27;re already under debt pressure and committed to a full-scale unconditional war against every non-human species - reintroduction of wolves is a direct attack.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not for or against wolf re-introduction. I&amp;#x27;m for ecosystem restoration and a sane economy. I&amp;#x27;m for humans taking care of the land, meeting our needs AND carving out areas where wolves and other large mammals are allowed to &amp;quot;make a living&amp;quot;. And that goes much deeper than just busing a few wolves into Colorado.</text></comment>
<story><title>Colorado wolf reintroduction to move forward</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2023-12-colorado-wolf-reintroduction-ranchers-legal.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DavidPastrnak</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a resident of Estes Park, Colorado, what is essentially Rocky Mountain National Park, and my partner in life is a biologist in RMNP where she tracks and monitors elk and moose populations. This has been on the forefront of our minds for awhile. While I’ll leave my personal opinion out of it, I do want to add a couple of notes.&lt;p&gt;Wolves have been crossing the boarder into Colorado for some time - the state is not completely void. Additionally, they have already released a handful in the last couple of weeks that were brought in from the PNW.&lt;p&gt;The topic of reintroduction is extremely complex and has led to heated and polarizing debates with residents across the state - even stretching into Wyoming politics where hunters are using electronic calls to lure them back across the border for hunting. This has resulted in a lot of confusion as to what the research outlines.&lt;p&gt;If anyone is curious, I have found this paper to be a great introduction to the topic. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;epdf&amp;#x2F;10.1111&amp;#x2F;csp2.413&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;epdf&amp;#x2F;10.1111&amp;#x2F;csp2...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Please remember that this is an extremely complex issue that is worth having constructive discussion on. I have faith that HN can keep it civil where other platforms have failed to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheCondor</author><text>The moose was reintroduced and it has brought havoc to the beaver habitat, especially in rocky.   We need wolves or something to balance the moose.  It has become a very different park since the moose has invaded</text></comment>