Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It

Growth: In Depth

Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It

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Growth: In Depth

Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It
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Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It

Wolves helped make many beloved places in the West lush.

Why you can trust us

By Sarah Gilman

< 1 MIN READ

Aug 31, 2023

An illustrated image of a black wolf wearing a telemetry collar appears at top left. In bottom right, an adult grey wolf is pictured next to the same black wolf, and the two are surrounded by a litter of wolf pups. Handwritten text between the two illustrations reads: In July of 2019, Colorado鈥檚 wildlife department received a report of a wolf. People often submitted photos too blurry to parse, or that featured obviously identifiable dogs or coyotes. But the subject of this one was unmistakable: black and leggy and wearing a telltale telemetry collar.

It turned out the wolf had been born near the Tetons in Wyoming and collared by wildlife officials there as F1084. She had made her home hundreds of miles southeast, in a mountain-rimmed Colorado basin called North Park.

Officials monitored her by plane, by trail cam, by her tracks and her howls. In early 2021, they noticed a gray wolf running at her side. Together, the pair produced six black pups鈥攖he first documented wolf litter born in Colorado in 80 years.

An illustrated map of the northwest quarter of the United States shows a path of arrows showing the migration paths of wolves, from Yellowstone in Wyoming and Frank Church Wilderness in Idaho, through Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Handwritten text reads: Once, wolves lived almost everywhere on the continent. But settlers brought livestock, and hunters killed off the elk, bison, and deer that wolves needed to survive. When wolves turned to killing cows and sheep, settlers鈥攈aving little use for wolves鈥攖urned to killing them. The nascent nation devoured land, and government agents and citizens poisoned, shot, and trapped wolves nearly out of existence to make room for spreading ranches, farms, towns, and cities.

But given space and opportunity, wolves have a way of spreading too. In the mid-1990s, federal biologists released 66 of them from Canada into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The wolves fanned through the Northern Rockies, establishing packs and territories, then spilled outward, moving from one state to the next like whispers in a game of telephone. Oregon and Washington by 2008, California by 2015.

An illustrated landscape shows grassy plains and human industry in the foreground, with mountains in the background. Inside the crosshairs of what looks like a rifle spec is the black wolf. Text reads: Wolves trickled into Colorado as well, but passing south was harder. The Red Desert, a 9,300-square-mile expanse with few places to hide, stands in the way, as do sprawling natural gas fields, Interstate 80, and most difficult of all, a still-pervasive belief that wolves are vermin. The federal government no longer protects wolves in the Northern Rockies, and Wyoming allows anyone to shoot them on sight outside the state鈥檚 rugged northwest corner. Colorado, where protections remain, was not exactly a haven, either. Those wolves that made it were hit by cars, poisoned, or shot; if any survived, none stayed.

In some ways, the state has changed. Just months before F1084 had her pups, Colorado voters tasked state wildlife officials with reintroducing a viable wolf population. And some ranchers there now use special range-riding methods to better protect both their livestock and predators.

The black and gray wolves are pictured at the bottom of the illustration, with flowers, leaves, Aspen trees, and an elk skull arising from the flurry of leaves trailing behind the wolves. Text reads: In other ways, nothing has changed. No one has seen F1084 since October of 2021; at least three of her pups were likely shot across the border in Wyoming. As far as officials know, only her mate and one son remain. Another pack that was confirmed farther west shortly after she arrived in 2019 is also gone.

Wolves helped make many beloved places in the West lush. Without predators, though, deer and elk herds boomed and browsed aspen, cottonwood, and willow into decline. When predators return, there is evidence that those plants can recover, potentially unleashing cascading benefits for birds, beavers, and other creatures鈥攊ncluding the smaller elk and deer herds that remain. But must wolves be 鈥渙f use鈥� for us to welcome them back, when that kind of thinking once nearly destroyed them?
Or can it finally be enough that this land belongs to them, and they to it?

Sarah Gilman is a writer and illustrator covering the environment, natural history, and science. A contributing editor at聽贬补办补颈听补苍诲听bioGraphic聽magazines, her work has also appeared in聽High Country News, The Atlantic, and more.

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Growth: In Depth

Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It

Growth: In Depth

Terra Affirma: Life Finds A Way鈥擨f We Let It

Wolves helped make many beloved places in the West lush.

Fall 2023

Growth

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