A federal judge has denied a request to halt the reintroduction of gray wolves in Colorado just days away from the predators’ release.

A federal judge has allowed the reintroduction of gray wolves in Colorado to move forward in the coming days by denying a request Friday from the state’s cattle industry for a temporary delay in the predators’ release.

While the lawsuit will continue, Judge Regina Rodriguez’s ruling allows Colorado to proceed with its plan to find, capture and transport up to 10 wolves from Oregon starting Sunday. The deadline to put paws on the ground under the voter-approved initiative is December 31.

The lawsuit from the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and The Gunnison County Stockgrowers’ Association alleges that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to adequately review the potential impacts of Colorado’s plan to release up to 50 wolves in Colorado over the next several years.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    102·
    11 months ago

    Wolves need to be reintroduced in many parts of the U.S. Here in Indiana, hunters have to keep the deer population down and even they can’t do a good enough job. Other states have even bigger problems with feral hogs. Wolves are essentially no threat to humans but there’s always scaremongering.

    Meanwhile, these ranchers are throwing a shit fit about TEN WOLVES.

    • Alchemy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      78·
      11 months ago

      Ranchers and farmers are the biggest welfare queen piss babies. Can’t wait for the wolves! - CO voter.

      • otterpop@lemmy.world
        8·
        11 months ago

        Probably not because those won’t affect their bottom line as much. Wolves harass cattle herds and run the weight off of them, requiring more workers to protect the herd and also reducing sale price. With wolves reintroduced, the price of beef will increase.

        That being said, we definitely still should reintroduce them, they have so many positive effects on the environment. Even if not reintroduced, it won’t be long before the wolves in Wyoming start making their way down anyway.

        • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          11 months ago

          I farm right next to (within 10km) pristine forest stretching for a few thousand km in a couple directions. I’ve seen plenty of wolves, but they never really come into the farming areas, and even if they do, the cattle aren’t very concerned. You have a couple hundred head together in a field, they aren’t worried about wolves, cougar or coyotes. They’d stomp them into a paste.

          We have neighbors that bitch and moan about the coyotes “killing calves”. I’ve seen plenty of coyotes chewing on dead calves, but I feel it’s pretty unlikely to have been them that killed it, they’re just cleaning up a late miscarriage that might have walked around for a while looking for a place to die. It’s almost always calves I’ve looked at and thought they weren’t going to last long.

          And there are more than enough deer, moose and elk around for these predators to go after that they would much rather take anyway, rather than risk an angry bunch of momma cows mopping them up.

          Frankly, if the price of having a healthy wildlife population means losing a few sick calves to them and a couple tonnes of grain to deer, I’m fine with it. That ecosystem benefits us in a lot of ways.

          • otterpop@lemmy.world
            2·
            11 months ago

            Interesting. Maybe the reason so many ranchers complain to the Wyoming Game and Fish is so they can get damage payouts. Perhaps they’re over exaggerating the issue.

            • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              Maybe it’s a very small amount of people complaining and the story is being made about them, and not the thousands of other ranchers that don’t give a fuck.

          • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            11 months ago

            No, but I bet someone along the supply chain will use it as the reason they had to jack up profits prices.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
            31·
            11 months ago

            “About…. 5 bucks a pound. These idiots will be pissed at the wolves and we’ll have record breaking profits! Like the Egg industry.”- Big Beef, certainly

          • otterpop@lemmy.world
            11·
            11 months ago

            10 wolves today, but in the future it’ll be hundreds or thousands potentially (which I’m fine with) but it’s shortsighted to think it’s only ten

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          5·
          11 months ago

          Speaking of reintroducing species- It’s too bad we can’t convince America (who I doubt we can convince to get off meat entirely in the foreseeable future) to switch from cattle to bison. Not only would it put the fauna we replaced back where it’s supposed to be, I just think it tastes better. You can usually only get it at local places for a premium, but back when I ate meat, it was definitely worth going out of my way for a buffalo burger.

          It can’t be that difficult to farm them, because I drive by a pretty sizable (but still clearly owned by one family) bison ranch on the way to my mother’s house on a fairly regular basis and they seem to be doing fine on the same pasture I see the cows grazing on nearby. If anything, there are more bison per square footage than cows and the bison don’t seem to be suffering. Considering they used to be in herds so huge that indigenous Americans would regularly stampede them off of cliffs for their meat and have plenty left to do it again, I’m guessing they can be farmed in greater density.

          • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            11 months ago

            Bison are quite a lot less feed efficient and a fucking pain in the ass to work with since you can’t get in with them like cattle, or work with horses. Treating them when they’re sick is a good way to get hurt or killed.

            But yah, it tastes better. So does elk, but that’s another species that’s better left wild.

            • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              11 months ago

              That sounds like the same sort of excuse some herder would’ve said about his aurochs back in the day. Better get goin’ on that domestication!

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          5·
          11 months ago

          the price of beef won’t increase because of this. The meat packing companies set the price that they’ll buy beef. they also set the price that they sell beef. they’ve been keeping their buying price down and increasing their selling price. it’s a fucking racket. Don’t let anybody sell you the idea that supply and demand effects this.

        • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.idEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          Even if not reintroduced, it won’t be long before the wolves in Wyoming start making their way down anyway.

          They already have. It’s not been publicly acknowledged because there are powerful land-use interests that want us to believe that they are only shooting “coyotes.”

          That said, the cheapest and most effective way to protect herds is with dogs. They’ve been doing it in Europe and parts of Asia for thousands of years, so it’s not as if the knowledge isn’t out there. It’s what your giant breeds like mastiffs, great Pyrenees and Anatolian shepherds and the like we’re originally bred for.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          23·
          11 months ago

          Just caught someone raising some kind of live stock (prolly dairy cows,) talking about the deer problem here in MN- getting into her feed by the hundreds (perhaps an exaggeration on her part.)

          It definitely is cutting into her bottom line…. She wants the DNR to kill the deer because it’s too expensive to put up fencing around her feed pile. (Yeah, they had to fill that part in… is the interviewee probably realized she was pushing it already.)

          • RedAggroBest@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 months ago

            I’m not pushing for one side or the other but you should really look at the costs for deer-proof fencing. It’s not just setting up some barbed wire lines like it is ranch animals

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          61·
          11 months ago

          Yeah. Well, from a time before emojis, sure,

          (Now I feel old. Before emojis, there was the smilie. And the vampire kirby. <(‘, ,’<) )

          • NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social
            32·
            11 months ago

            Believe it or not I am old enough to remember them, I am just so old I couldn’t remember wtf smilies were called.😞

            I can probably still send a whole t9 text from my pocket though.🤣

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        No, they convince rich assholes to spend $3,000 to shoot a hog on their land.

        It’s a huge problem here in Texas where hogs are destroying everything, but all the ranchers are leaning that charging people to hunt his on their land brings in more money than the damage the hogs cause.