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The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted Thursday and prioritized feelings over science-based management. Meanwhile, Rancher X is the beneficiary of those feelings-driven decisions. Well played, Governor. The newest appointees to the CPW Commission are just the parting gift you had in mind for rural Colorado.
The Commission voted Thursday 6-5 to reject CPW staff recommendations again and, rather than imposing a 15 animal per day bag limit on furbearers suggested by staff after staff explained the science behind the current framework, they imposed a 2-animal bag limit. This was all despite staff explaining harvest levels across all furbearers are at historic lows. Dr. Rebecca Niemiec, in her first Commission meeting, said the new limit was meant to “make sure people feel better” about trapping. She then offered an unverified survey she completed herself with about 600 respondents to prove her point. That survey was compared to the data collected and analyzed by the biologists I hope aren’t penning their resignation letters this morning in search of an agency that isn’t run by a Commission like this one.
Commissioners Dallas May and Frances Silva-Blaney attempted to pass a motion to allow CPW more time; that motion failed. Niemiec then moved to restrict the furbearer bag limits to two per day. She said, “there’s a large section of the public that doesn’t like that we can kill an unlimited number of animals.” John Le Coq, also newly appointed, seconded the motion.
Notably, CPW places trapping success rates at about 15% with 3,000 successful trappers of the 20,000 permits issued trapping two animals per species, per season.
“Social acceptance is being confused with a political agenda that seeks to eliminate the hunting of furbearers,” Silva Blaney said. “Furbearer populations are abundant. We don’t have a problem with furbearers.”
But we have problems with feelings.
Commissioner Tai Jacober urged the Commission to err on the side of science rather than social tolerance. When the vote was done, he asked why the Commission is choosing not to support staff recommendation. “I guess it’s a practice in social acceptance,” he said.
Commissioner Silva Blaney suggested the time could have been better used to work on lesser prairie chicken management, a species that is struggling.
Commissioner May said the Commission has “done a disservice to all the people.”
Commissioner Jack Murphy pointed out the effect of trappers is small because there just aren’t many of them.
One of the people directly affected by wildlife management via ballot-box biology is Rancher X. He is the now-former employee of the Nottingham Ranch and is the man who caught a wolf in the act of chasing cattle. and shot her. Today, Rancher X defines the moment the wolf situation in Colorado reached a breaking point.
The Nottingham Ranch lost 60 calves over the winter. After the male of the King Pack died during re-collaring operations, the female with pups moved into the ranch’s calving grounds during the heat of calving. In an interview, Rancher X said though he was following direction to “protect the cattle and shoot if necessary,” he has since been fired. He said his belongings, including the belongings of his late wife, were disposed of. A call to the ranch owner has not yet been returned.
“I did everything by the book,” he said. “I was told under any circumstances to take care of those cows. A wolf came in and was depredating, I was told to take care of (the cows), and I did. I did it by the law, but I did it.”
He said he’s in a bad situation. He likened it to the situation former CPW Dir. Jeff Davis was placed in by the governor. There are, to be sure, no winners. This situation was going to occur eventually, not because ranchers hate wolves, but because ranching is a business and the plan the CPW Commission approved allows for the lethal take of wolves caught in the act. Now it will be a waiting game to see the outcome of the investigation against a rancher who no longer has a job or legal representation.
Rancher X, who left the ranch with little more than the clothes on his back, is now trying to put his life back together, he said, and there has been a GoFundMe campaign launched to help him. At press time, it has raised $150. Due to the ongoing investigation and the very real need to protect his identity from those who wish to do him harm, his name is being withheld.
The decisions made by the 300 boards and commissions in the state affect real people. They’re perhaps not chiming in on a willy-nilly survey about their feelings because their heads are down and they’re trying to make a living despite the people who wish they would just leave. Real lives are being destroyed. Real problems are being created. Real solutions will have to come soon.
Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication.
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