Powerful story out of Colorado: ranchers v wolves, and what that battle reveals about rural v. urban

This Colorado Sun story "Wolves, ranchers, and the law," is a doozie, any way you slice or dice it.  Jennifer Brown reports out of Walden, population 609, in the North Park region of the state.  Wolves are killing cattle there, and ranchers are furious, not least because the state voted in 2020 to re-introduce wolves.  

Of course, at its core, this is an old story--the conflict between ranchers who wish to protect their cattle and conservationists who wish to protect the wolves.  The Colorado Sun piece features the Gittleson family, in particular, who've recently lost three head of cattle and had another cow injured in a wolf attack.  The whole story is very much worth a read, but I'm just going to highlight the part about how ranchers feel they are treated--by urbanites and the law--reflected mostly in quotes from Gittleson family members:

North Park is ground zero in Colorado’s wolf controversy. Almost no one here supported the 2020 ballot measure to reintroduce wolves to the state. And now that the wolves have arrived on their own, wandering across the Wyoming state line and helping themselves to cattle, residents here are wondering whether the city dwellers who voted to bring back wolves will finally understand what they’ve been saying.

“I don’t think they care, no matter what we say to them,” said Kim Gittleson, sitting at her kitchen table with tired eyes after another night on wolf watch. “These cows are our living. We don’t want to see that happen to our cows, not just because it’s our livelihood. It’s just sad to see any animal tortured that way that you cared for.”

 
It would be easier, many locals say, to “shoot, shovel and shut up” when wolves prey on their livestock, although getting caught shooting a protected species could mean a $100,000 fine and a year in jail. The Gittlesons, though, said they are reporting every wolf sighting and attack to their local Colorado Parks and Wildlife agents, seeking government compensation for their dead cows, and asking for help to scare the pack away from the ranch.

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“If we wanted to shoot the wolves, we could have stopped this day one,” Dave Gittleson said. “We could’ve gone out there and wiped out the pack. Done. But that’s not a long-term solution. Don’t shoot the wolves. Everything we just lost would be for nothing.”

Instead, North Parkers are working together to protect their cattle — and to make a point.

Don Gittleson, who runs the ranch alone on weekdays while his wife and son work other jobs more than an hour away in Steamboat Springs, is exhausted from staying up most of the night for weeks. They’re hoping Colorado Parks and Wildlife will come through on hiring a range rider, someone to patrol the ranch in the dark, but they have their doubts.

It makes the Gittlesons chuckle that the state would require the range rider to have a COVID vaccination. It’s just one more example, they say, of how urban Colorado and its government does not “get” them, seeing as how the range rider would sit alone on a four-wheeler or in a truck on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

Like the infamous “MeatOut Day” controversy of last spring and the proposed ballot measure that would have defined artificial insemination of cows as a criminal sex act, the wolf debate has widened the cultural divide. Ranchers feel their way of life is under attack, or at the least, misunderstood.

“It’s not just a Democrat-versus-Republican divide. It’s urban versus rural,” said Coby Corkle, who grew up in Walden and is a Jackson County commissioner. “Rural Colorado is really just trying to hold on.”

Gov. Jared Polis is not popular here. Neither is First Gentleman Marlon Reis, an animal rights advocate. North Park ranchers were fuming last week after governor-appointed State Board of Veterinary Medicine member Ellen Kessler called ranchers “lazy and nasty” and accused them of using a cow to bait wolves in a comment on Reis’ Facebook page. They cheered when she apologized and resigned from the board a few days later.

The sentiment up here, in the “Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado,” is made clear by a sign east of Walden. “If you voted for reintroduction of wolves,” it says, “Do not recreate here. You are not welcome!”

The rancher's talk about "shoot, shovel and shut up," reminds me of this post from a student more than a decade ago.  That student had grown up in rural Idaho and was a former law enforcement officer there, which gave him a distinct perspective I was glad he shared on the blog.