You bring up another good point. Even if an animal had a historic range someplace (wolverines in CO... another project I actually worked on), that doesn't mean that they will ever come back no matter what we do. Wolverines are secretive. They need deep snow pack and most importantly they need to be left alone! Their are WAY too many people living all over the state of Colorado for wolverines to ever have a chance at coming back. The government would literally have to kick people off their land to restore large enough habitat for wolverines. Never going to happen. There are also numerous baricades (about 12 different 4 lane highways and many miles of unsuitable habitat) that prevent wolverines from migrating back into Colorado even if they wanted to.

Yet despite all this the state still pays to SURVEY for them when they haven't been seen in DECADES if not longer. They even go so far as to manage habitat for them! The CO division of wildlife and the forest service wildlife biologists have their hands tied. Instead of spending all of their resources working on projects that actually matter (boreal toad and bighorn sheep recoveries) they have to take entire days, and large swaths of money, wasted on a hopeless cause.

The inconsistency, hypocrisy, politics, and lack of educated law makers are glaring. Several years ago a lone grey wolf was found hit by a car on I70 only about 30 miles outside of Denver. Did the state bother to think, hmmm maybe wolves could make a comeback in CO (which they could)? Did they start to manage habitat for wolves like they do fo wolverines? No, they called it a fluke just to escape the nightmare wolf debate going on up north. Pansies!

[ Show Entire Thread ]