Wolves in Natrona County, Wyoming. A long ways from Yellowstone. 2011.
Just recently on this blog I posted a link to the Southern Rockies Nature Blog about wolves reintroducing themselves to Colorado. Since I posted that, the same blog has a new entry on the ballot initiative pending in Colorado to have wolves reintroduced there and who will pay for it.
What I'd forgotten, until I read an item on the Tribune on the Colorado story, is that this past week marks the 25th anniversary of their reintroduction into Wyoming. Here's the short snipped about it on our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History:
Today In Wyoming's History: January 12: 1995 Wolves retintroduced to Yellowstone National Park.It's odd to think that something I had a minor involvement in, in the form of a legal commentator, is now sufficiently far in the past that it's history.
It's also odd to think it's only 25 years ago.
Twenty five years ago I wasn't married, but I was about to be. Our marriage would take place that upcoming March, so we were engaged and only a few months out from getting married. I'd have placed wolf reintroduction further back in time from that for some reason.
That I would is an odd thought in and of itself as the article I co authored on the topic was published in the spring of 1990, five years prior. For some reason I'd have placed the actual reintroduction around 1993 or so, but why that sticks out in my mind I'm not sure. That year in general sticks out in my mind as my father died that April. It wasn't a great year. Not every one is.
I'd first experience wolves myself in 2000. I was hunting near the park in a very warm year and I'd drawn both a sheep tag and a moose tag, something that you really don't want to do. Hunting moose, by myself south of the park, I heard them howling at night. I saw them early one morning when I was hunting one side of a swamp, and they were hunting the other side.
In 2011, when the photograph taken above was snapped by me, on a cell phone, they were in Natrona County. Their presence where I took that photo was a very open secret at that time, but I didn't know they were there until I took the photo. A couple of years went by, that photo is only eight years old, and a pack had established itself in the farming district just outside of Casper. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife had to intervene in that as it was a heavily agricultural area and livestock losses were inevitable, but the wolves reportedly remain on the east side of Casper Mountain.
In 1990, when wolf reintroduction in Wyoming was a hot topic, I recall seeing speakers on it and I've already written on that. But one thing I knew then and recall thinking was baloney was how the propaganda on wolves de natured them, if you will.
Wolves would never leave the park, it was claimed. Wolves wouldn't harm anything. Tales about wolves and their nature, including their killing of humans in times past, were all fairy tales.
In actuality, it was obvious right from the onset that wolves would leave the park. What wasn't appreciated was how rapid their advance would really be. It's been blistering in real terms. Twenty five years ago only seems like a long time if you are fairly young. It's less than half of my lifetime and it's not a long time.
That provides a good reason not to reintroduce wolves to Colorado. A natural reintroduction is always better than a forced one. The process in Wyoming wasn't smooth and it took about 20 years to work it out. Part of the reason for that was that the level of trust was very low, made low in part by their advocates telling fables that immediately turned out not to be true.
Indeed, as I felt then, and as I still feel now, it's not the wolves that cause the problems. It's their advocates. The advocates don't really have to live with them the way that a declining number of people who really live outdoors do. Most of those people aren't really opposed to wolves themselves, but rather the fantasies of the advocates.
Scenes of days gone by. . . which doesn't mean that they never happened.
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