Colorado has now spent more than $8 million over five years on the wolf restoration program, according to a presentation made at Thursday’s Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting in Grand Junction.

Justin Rutter, the assistant director for financial and capital services at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, also addressed the apparent discrepancy between the General Assembly’s Blue Book estimate of the annual program cost, which is around $800,000.

He noted a caveat in the Blue Book language around the program’s cost, one that said, “actual state spending will depend on the details of the plan,” developed by the commission, and the cost to compensate for livestock losses caused by wolves.

Those additional costs since the ballot measure was passed in 2020 have included what CPW has spent to set up the range rider program, hiring for conflict minimization, and “extensive public outreach,” Rutter told the commission.

In fiscal year 2021-22, the first year the legislature funded the program, the program received $1.1 million in taxpayer funds, and that rose to $2.1 million in 2022-23.

In the current fiscal year, the program’s budget is $3.6 million, with general fund covering $2.1 million, the wolf depredation fund at $539,454, which reflects what was needed, above the $350,000 annual appropriation from the legislature, and money from a “keep Colorado Wild license plate,” at $500,000. The program also receives non-hunting/angling license revenue, amounting to $425,000.

The compensation and minimization costs total $749,973. Personal services for CPW staff take $2 million, and other operating costs total $800,000.

The other significant change that drove costs is a decision to allow for indirect losses, which has been a controversial issue when CPW and the staff review compensation claims, as was also discussed during Thursday’s meeting.

Those indirect losses are based on lower birth rates for cows that have been harassed by wolves, as well as lower market rates when the cattle are sold.

The Blue Book assumed three conflict specialists: CPW budgeted for 10. “If I had told legislative council (which puts together the Blue Book) that when we had 25 wolves, I would need 10 conflict management specialists, I don’t think they would have believed me,” Rutter said. The range rider program also was not contemplated when the fiscal note was developed, he said.

The fiscal note didn’t account for the action required once the wolves arrived, Rutter indicated.

The amount CPW spent to cover claims from ranchers for livestock losses went up Thursday by more than $130,000.

After a lengthy debate, the commission voted narrowly to approve compensation claims submitted by Conway Farrell of Grand County for $100,045.57, which essentially covered calves that disappeared from his property in 2024 after wolves appeared. Farrell said all 10 of the wolves relocated to Colorado from Oregon were on his ranch. The mating pair that eventually produced the Copper Creek pack, however, was likely responsible for killing his livestock and the disappearance of 89 calves in 2024. That’s nearly four times the number of calves lost in an average year.

Farrell submitted five claims to CPW, totaling more than $387,000. CPW staff, however, rejected the $100,000 claim for lost calves, which sparked a lengthy debate on Thursday over whether a “missing” calf meant it was a “dead” calf. CPW said no, Farrell and his attorney said “yes.”

But Farrell’s attorney, Kathleen Pritchard of Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley, P.C pointed to a 2003 study, frequently cited on the livestock calf survival when wolves are present, said that for every dead cow, there are seven more that go missing.

“Ranchers are asking for less than they have coming. It isn’t charity, it’s something they lost” and they’re not even getting full compensation for it, said Commissioner Dallas May, a rancher in Prowers County. “We’re down to the point of having one word” out of thousands in the wolf plan and something easily overlooked when we adopted the wolf plan.”

CPW Director Jeff Davis, while not weighing in one way or the other, told commissioners, “It sucks to have the debate time after time after time.” Every day brings a new barrier that he didn’t anticipate, he said.

But he also indicated there’s a bigger picture and message if a claim was rejected.

“As a practitioner, trying to pull off this law, there’s a lot of grenade throwing,” he said. People are losing hope. When people lose hope, they get desperate, and desperate things start to happen.’

Davis said he needs to “make sure we deliver stuff that keeps people at the table or we will all lose in this deal.” He said he has a pit in his stomach, worrying that “really good people” will walk away from the table when they’re needed to help figure this out.

Commissioner Tai Jacober, commenting on Davis’ remarks, said there is high importance in private lands to ecosystems and wildlife, and “we cannot have this eroded over money,” and emphasized the importance of trust and actions by animals causing problems.

“We don’t have islands of lands…and if we don’t move forward in a cooperative manner” and without access to private land for studies and hunting, it will fail.

“All I do is wolf,” Jacober said. “We have 900 species we have to manage but we have to move on, and the way to get there is not to have an argument over one word.”

Commissioners, including Jay Tuchton, said paying the claim would violate CPW regulations, but staff said the commission has a little more flexibility and could settle the claim.

That’s what commissioners narrowly voted to do: reject the staff recommendation and settle the claims from Farrell for $100,000 and from the Coberly Creek Ranch in Routt County for $30,000. They also decided they should do rulemaking to make it clear that a missing calf is presumed dead.

CPW staff also discussed the three new packs of wolf pups born this spring. “Despite what you might hear, not all aspects of wolf management have been a failure,” said Eric Odell, the wolf conservation program manager.

He showed a trail video of three pups from the King Mountain pack, born in Routt County in mid-April. Odell said that they anticipate about half of those pups surviving past the first year. Two more packs were born this spring in Jackson and Rio Blanco counties, he said.

“Wolf puppies are a lot happier than dead cows,” said Tuchton, who voted against the settlement.

Odell also showed selected wolf movements, with one female wolf traveling 2,469 miles, averaging almost 15 miles a day for 165 days. She started in Eagle County, went west to Grand Junction, then north to Steamboat, south through Grand County, and finally down to Gunnison, before returning to the Grand Junction area. Those movements are not the norm, and no other wolves have covered the landscape that way, Odell said.

And while they hope to get more wolves from British Columbia, those agreements have not yet been made, Odell said.