If you’ve been keeping up with the coverage on wolf reintroduction in Colorado, you already know Don Gittleson, the rancher near Walden who has been dealing with wolves coming after his livestock even before wolves were dropped in the state late last year.
Now that the new wolves are here, and the new rules too, Gittleson is looking for guidance from Colorado Parks and Wildlife as to how he can follow the rules while utilizing his rights recently published. The 10(j) rule ( which we have extensively covered here ) allows for lethal control of an experimental population of otherwise endangered animals (this is a simplification, but basically if the wolves make a habit of killing livestock, those wolves can be killed to stop the repeated bad behavior.)
Gittleson is now asking how much is enough to ensure he’s legally allowed to try and kill the wolves who continue to come back to the ranch looking for an easy meal. He’s calculated 20 depredations in the last 2 years in his county from the same wolves, 7 of those were on his property. He knows which wolves they are (not any of the new wolves dropped in Colorado from Oregon) and he believes what’s happening in Jackson County should qualify for this 10(j) rule and lethal action.