Dear Editor,

Today, I read the news that Colorado is now looking to Washington to import wolves. 

As an animal lover, I’ve studied the wolf reintroduction since 1995, interviewed multiple state biologists and federal officials and based my honors thesis on the subject, I cannot be more disheartened at the State’s recent plans to continue bringing wolves into Colorado, now from Washington.

My heart stops there. Ten wolves are already dead from this idealized, overly-romanticized, ill-informed reintroduction effort. Ranchers have the attention of CPW, and that won’t be changing anytime soon.

CPW is in the business of selling wildlife to support their agency, hunting tags and licenses being the way. While they’ve created committees to discuss, ad nauseum, the pro's and con’s of wolf reintroduction, mitigation, losses thereby (which are always overestimated and often wrongly attributed), wolves wander ever closer into the crosshairs of ranchers waiting to lethally remove them.

They’ve never wanted the wolves here to begin with. Since the original 1995 Wolf Reintroduction in the Yellowstone Recovery Area, they’ve been loading up their rifles and convincing the powers-that-be that wolves are the reason for economic loss.

Our Siberian Husky mutt was shot as a six-month-old puppy while romping in an open field in Alamosa, allegedly by a rancher mistaking her for a coyote. My husband and I will be walking her along in her wheelchair on our valley trails and changing her diapers for the rest of her beautiful life. 

I understand completely that voters chose this. I was not among them. 

Lack of social acceptance is a death sentence for wolves. They are innocent pawns in our political games, bounced on and off the Endangered Species List as often as a superball in my kitchen. 

It's a cruelty to bring more wolves into Colorado without social acceptance. Just stop now.

Denise Boehler

Nederland