GRAND COUNTY, Colo — The Colorado Department of Agriculture is dedicating up to $20,000 for the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association to use on non-lethal wolf deterrents, the department said.
Tim Ritschard, head of the association, said the money will be used to hire a range rider, which is a person who will be out with the cattle, monitoring the herds. He said it is a good start, but one person will not solve the problems of the ranchers in Grand County.
"Eighty thousand acres is what I roughly guess is what one range rider is riding right now," Ritschard said. "That is like a quarter of Grand County, and that’s only eight producers and about 5,000 head of livestock. We've got to triple that or quadruple that to make it work," he said.
"I don't think this is the ultimate answer to everything," he said. "I think we were willing to test it right now and figure out what will work."
The stockgrowers and the Colorado Department of Agriculture have been working together since mid-April to come to an agreement about what could help them. Kate Greenberg, Colorado's Commissioner of Agriculture, said this is the first time her department has offered a grant like this. Middle Park will be allowed to use the money as they see fit.
"We want to lean on what communities think will work, and we’re going to learn a lot together as we go out and implement those practices," Greenberg said.
The collaboration between the stock association and the Department of Agriculture comes after eight cattle were killed by wolves in Jackson and Grand counties in one month -- including five cattle from the same ranch in Grand County.
Greenberg said that after her department received additional funding this week from the state, they can also move ahead with a plan to hire three people who will help ranchers implement non-lethal means of controlling wolves. The hiring process has started, she said, and it is all about moving towards one goal.
"The ultimate goal is a successful livestock industry that's coexisting with a new predator on the landscape, and we’ve got to stand by our livestock community and understanding what works where," Greenberg said.
Greenberg said she hopes to have the employees and plan in place by summer.
Both the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association and North Park Stockgrowers Association have asked CPW to kill the wolves responsible for the cattle deaths in Grand County. Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Gov. Jared Polis' office rejected those requests.
In a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting Wednesday, CPW Director Jeff Davis said that they cannot kill these wolves because there are not enough wolves to sustain a population in Colorado.
“With really low wolf numbers it can be really complicated to take any wolves out of that population," Davis said.
Once more wolves are born, Davis said, it might be another story.
“Part of our [management] plan does include lethal removal,” Davis said. “Prevention is everything. We do everything we can together to prevent negative interactions between wolves and livestock, and when those fail, then it’s really important to lethally remove wolves that are habituated to livestock.”
Davis said a pair of the reintroduced wolves have had pups, and he expects them to come out from their den in a few weeks.
“Wolves are a new stressor--a stressor that’s on top of multiple stressors, and it can feel like folks have an agenda to push ranchers off the landscape,” Davis said. “We do not want wolves to be something that further divides us.”
The Department of Agriculture said the grant is intended "to get on-the-ground assistance to an area impacted by recent wolf depredation." They said the money will help during calving season, "an especially vulnerable time for beef producers."
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