National Park After Dark - The Comeback Kids ft. Rob Edward & Dr. Joanna Lambert: The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Today we are joined by Rob Edward and Dr. Joanna Lambert of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project to discuss the recent wolf re-introduction in Colorado. They give us insight into the project’s beginnings, triumphs and its future goals. We have insightful discussions about the challenges wolves face throughout the American West, their ecological role and why they belong.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Taylor Farm Hemp Co: Use code NPAD for 15% off your first order plus free shipping.Factor: Use our link and code npad50 to get 50% offFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle. I'm Cassie. And we are continuing our Wolf Week. Yes, it's so exciting. It wasn't planned, but it's just the way the cookie crumbled. And I couldn't be happier personally.

Yeah. I could talk to all of these people all day. So we have a special week full of wolves and a special week full of talking to people about them. So it's a nice little change up. And today's conversation is incredibly insightful and inspiring. Yes, we are, we're diving into a lot of wolf questions and the wolf project that just happened in Colorado. It's been all over the news that they reintroduced 10 wolves so far into Colorado. and today we have the pleasure of speaking to two incredible leaders in their fields and two leaders

in the decade-long effort to reintroduce wolves into portions of their historic range here in Colorado. We're speaking to Dr. Lambert, who is a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also directs the American Canid Project. Joanna has spent the past 35 years of her career studying endangered mammals, species in remote regions around the world. Most recently, she and her students are researching coyotes and wolves around the American West, including in Yellowstone National Park, where she spends as much time as possible. Joanna has published several books and hundreds of peer-reviewed articles on her research and serves as an editor for several international science journals. For her effort, she has been

elected as a fellow in the American Association for Advancement of Science, as well as a fellow in the Linnaean Society of London, the Institute where Charles Darwin first presented his theory of evolution. Throughout her almost 40 years of field research around the world, she has witnessed extraordinary challenges to biodiversity and human quality of life, realities that have fundamentally impacted her career. Now in addition to being a field scientist and educator, she is also a conservation practitioner and activist. In this capacity, she serves as a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission and as an advisor to the United Nations Environmental Program, Project Coyote, and the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project.

Joanna spends as much time as she can in wild places, preferably on a horse and with her dogs, striving for optimism and solutions in a challenging world. Woo! I feel very bad about my resume now. I'm like, man. You are an impressive woman, Joanna. Yeah. Well, we also have another guest on this episode.

as well, and his name is Rob Edward, and he is a co-founder and strategic advisor for the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project and president of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund. For years, he has been a leader in wolf advocacy and has been instrumental in the recent reintroduction of wolves within the state of Colorado. Rob grew up in Idaho Falls, spending as much of his summers exploring Yellowstone National Park as possible. After four years in the Air Force, he went on to earn a degree in political science, focusing on the politics of ecology from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He extensively studied indigenous cultures and the eradication of Buffalo during government sanction removal efforts. During his research, he discovered the Grey Wolf, their plight,

and all the threats to their continued survival here in the United States, specifically in the lower 48. He felt something should be done, so he took action. In 1994, Rob moved to Colorado to specialize in large predator restoration. Eventually, the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project was born, and thanks to its efforts, wolves have been reintroduced to the state. The project's initiative works to help wolves thrive throughout the Rockies through public outreach, consensus building, and a firm embrace of the best science. Today, Rob and Joanna are here to speak about the project to the importance of wolf reintroduction efforts, differences in public opinion about wolves, and the future of the wolf throughout the Rockies. So So without further ado, Rob Edward and Dr. Joanna Lambert, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Welcome to the podcast, Rob and Joanna. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us. So the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project made headlines around the world, and here in Colorado, especially, with the newly reintroduced wolves to Colorado. So just to begin and get us kicked off, for our listeners who may not be as well-versed or familiar with the initiative, can you just explain what the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project is? and what your role is within it? Sure. So I'll start off. The Rock Mountain Wolf Project is a small, volunteer-driven nonprofit based in Durango, Colorado,

though our volunteers, Joe and I are kind of on the front range and others are over on the western slope. So we're all over the place. But we formed back in the mid-2000s to help build me. momentum towards a ballot initiative to get wolves on the ballot in 2020 because after doing 30 years of due diligence, speaking for myself and my colleague Mike Phillips, we saw there was no other path forward to get wolves were introduced to Colorado other than to put it to the people. And so that's what we did. And the wolf project was kind of the public information, public support building mechanism to do that, working with a bunch of other non-profit organizations in coalition.

After the campaign was launched, there was a separate entity called the Rocky Mount Wolf Action Fund that ran the campaign. I was part of that, and Joe was a science advisor to that as well, Dr. Lambert. And the campaign was successful, as you know, in November of 2020, the people of Colorado said, Indeed, we want wolves back. We ran that campaign, interestingly, in the middle of a global pandemic at the height of it. We're planning on that, and I guess we wouldn't have done it any differently other than, you know, there was a lot of fundraising trials that we had to face and we couldn't go door to door like a traditional campaign in terms of talking to voters. So that was definitely hard. But we won. Yes, you did. And Colorado won. So we're very happy about that. And now the Rocky Mountain World Project is focused on the future for wolves and people in Colorado. And that means working directly with those folks in Western Colorado who are going to be directly affected by the presence of wolves. Maybe negatively, maybe not.

But nonetheless, if they're growing livestock in particular, we need to be proactive in helping ranchers prepare for the eventuality of, of encountering wolves and help them understand what that means for raising livestock. It's not the end of the world for them, but it's a big change. And it's a cultural thing that they did as an industry that want to go through. Right. We're here to help them with that. And we've already been very engaged in that since the campaign was successful in 2020. So we're just building on that momentum.

Joe? Yeah. And just to add to that, as Rob indicated, the work that we've been doing as the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. It may just now be emerging in terms of kind of a conversation that folks are having now

that wolves are back in Colorado. But this honestly has been a conversation that's been going on amongst conservationists for decades, quite literally decades, right? How to get wolves back into Colorado. We've got this fantastic, you know, sort of prey base. We've got the public lands and the area on the western slope, and this has been long recognized. So this isn't just sort of a whim that came up more recently, like, let's see what we can do.

It really is the culmination of decades of work, especially Rob himself, along with colleague Mike Phillips of the Turner Fund for Endangered Species. I also, Rob hinted at this, that we have shifted gears somewhat. So leading up to the campaign, we were a large coalition, right? I think over 80 individuals that were regularly calling in and, you know, navigating strategy. And, you know, we had a campaign manager in the truest sense of the word, a professional campaign manager. We had folks that were working with, you know, legal teams to put together the wording of the ballot itself. And so that really, you know, was just, it was a, it was a massive effort, right? Because we also had dozens upon dozens of boots on the ground of folks that were getting signatures.

And we had one mission, and that was to get gray wolves on onto the ballot. As of November 2020, we were successful with our initiative. So we have reconfigured as a group, right? So we are still called the Rocky Mount Wolf Project, but we are now sort of a lean, mean kind of fighting machine of five of us that are working together. So we can be called RMWP or Rocky Mount Wolf Project version two, right? with as you know as as as as rob indicated a primary mission of of um i hear my cat yow

it's like no not wolves it's about cats so um yeah so you know our sort of newly configured mission right of a reduction of conflict right of those folks that are that are working in landscapes where wolves may be in the area so we've kind of regrouped with a new mission. We're a small, uh, type team of, of, uh, you know, folks with, with varying, uh, areas of expertise and skills. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after,

the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. And you both mentioned that with farming and with ranchers that are within Colorado, there's bound to be some conflict with wolves and that you are working to help mitigate that. What does that look like? What is your mission to have ranchers be more prepared for these and to minimize the conflict? Joe, do you want to field that question first? Sure. That comes in many forms, Cassie and Danielle. So, you know, one piece of legislation of which we're quite proud as a group was gaining sponsorship for a bill that would result in the creation of a new license plate here in Colorado.

It's beautifully rendered. It's got an image, an artist rendering of a wolf on. on the license plate. I have it. Yeah, it's lovely. And that was successfully, you know, pass. It is now an available license plate. All the, it's a specialty plate, right?

So all of the revenue from that plate is going to a pot of funds that will be used by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in offsetting conflict between wolves and other predators and, and, those who make a living in working landscapes. So that has been something that we've been working towards. We've got a number of other initiatives with others on our team. Courtney Vale and Matt Barnes are working assiduously on, you know, boots again, boots on the ground, working with ranchers, engaged in sort of workshops and in conversations. We all, to the best of our capacity, given, you know, various time constraints and with our regular day jobs are showing up as much as possible to these interactions, I think, or I don't think. It's, it's, I know from a lifetime of

being engaged in conservation initiatives that the single best thing to do is just show up and listen, right? And listen to the concerns of individuals. The reality is that the costs and benefits of this campaign and of the reintroduction of wolves in general are not evenly distributed, right? Right. So those individuals on the front range, having, you know, different sort of responses to the whole initiative than those many folks, not all, those folks that may be making a living, growing livestock.

So whenever and wherever possible we are showing up to various forums where, we're concerns can be raised. I'll let Rob chime in. We've got we've got a number of other pieces that are going on elements of that I'll let Rob extrapolate on. Yeah, as Dr. Glever mentioned, the bottom line is showing up and Courtney and Matt in particular have been out since the campaign was completed in 2020 working with ranchers in northwestern Colorado. In fact, the one rancher that does become kind of the focus of, you know, what happens when wolves depredate. They've had direct interactions with and been facilitating a lot of work to help get flabry out and, you know, try to help the rancher understand what it means to really truly deal with depredation proactively, right,

to try to help wolves learn that going after livestock is not the first and best option. Right. And so, that's the future and that's what the license plate will help fund in a huge way and in a way that is very different from any other state that has wolves now Colorado is really doing this differently and that money will go towards non-lethal conflict reduction tools techniques training you know it can pay for range riders it can pay for flattery it can pay for flocks it can pay for new research on other technology like drones. So yeah, there's a lot that Colorado is doing better and very differently. Yeah. We have ongoing conversations with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. One piece that I think will be really successful. There's still logistics to sort out. And that is the creation of a range

riding program in general. So this is, as Rob indicated, we have a whole, a whole, a very diverse toolkit of what might be called non-lethal coexistence mechanisms or non-lethal conflict reduction tools. And one of those is just getting folks out into landscapes where wolves and cattle may be co-mingling, right? And what this looks like is, you know, trained rangers, trained riders that are on horseback in areas. and, you know, where it might be difficult to traverse on foot or in a vehicle, but getting out ahead of, you know, where, or determining from horseback where wolves are, where cattle are, and, you know, sort of getting out ahead of those two species pumping into each other in that

country, right? So that we know is a successful means by which we can offset conflict before it even even begins. I mean, and it's, it stems, it's coming from clearly from a tradition in Eurasia and especially in Europe of just having people on the landscape in general, right? It used to be shepherds and now, you know, that we're continuously with their livestock and now this is is being replaced in some ways in the American West by having ranks, what we call range riders out there. So we're really excited about that as an initiative. Yeah, and I think it's so, it's so thrilling to hear that because just from personal experience, I mean, you can read all you want about, you know, the attitudes that different Americans have about wolves because everyone has one, it seems,

even if they've never been in wolf territory, lived in wolf habitat or anything like that. Wolves are just such a divisive topic and just kind of always have. has been. But personally, when I worked for the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, I went down to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hearing for the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction. And it was just something about expanding the recovery area. And they were just having, you know, a hearing about it. And, you know, I went down with some of my team members. And just to see it firsthand, you know, it was like we were outnumbered like five to one, you know, ranchers. versus pro wolf. And not to say that ranchers are inherently anti-wolf, it was just concerns. And being there

is makes all the difference, I think, because if we weren't there in a couple, I mean, there were some people from Wild Earth Guardians and a few other organizations. But if they weren't there, it was just, you know, there's nobody to speak to and to hear concerns, you know, as far as, well, what are your worries and what can we do to help mitigate that and kind of find some sort of minimal? ground. And that's, you know, we can wish wolves back all we want. But if there's no collaborative effort, it's never going to happen. So I think that what the work you guys are doing in that aspect is just so key to the future. Because like you said, Rob, like, yes, we got it. We were here. But now what? Like the success is determined with the people, unfortunately.

But that's just how it is. We're not in the wild west anymore where there's only a few people around and wildlife can abound. You know, it's a different world. And we kind of just have to adjust to that. Yeah. And, you know, I always think about this. It's a fundamental human attribute to want to be heard, right? To want to have voice. And I think that is one of the single most important aspects of all of this is empowering individuals to be heard, right? And to be heard means there need to be people listening, right? Right. So I have a number of graduate students that are engaged in aspects of this work in various ways.

And sure, they're coming in with their own perspectives. They've been, you know, trained. They're in their graduate program. And my advice to them is that you will not be the expert in this room, right? You will not be the person, the individual that's going to be, you know, telling us. others what to do or what not to do. You're there to listen. Now, there are experts, right?

There are experts in terms of those individuals who have worked for many years as, you know, conflict reduction officers, right? Or individuals that know the tools. And that's another part of all of what we're doing, not just Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, but all of the, you know, the entities from the state agency to diverse nonprofits, to individuals that we need, we need to figure on how to do this again, right? It's my, my, you know, my talking points is that for thousands upon thousands of years, humans have been living alongside, you know, diverse apex predators and various predators,

but that was interrupted. That has been interrupted over the last couple of hundred years. And along with that interruption, you know, we've lost the, the knowledge by which to accomplish that, what ecologists call sympatry or what we might call the sharing of landscapes among different species. So there are definitely circumstances where there are trainings going on and reinstalling that knowledge of, okay, what to do about it? What are the concrete tools that we have in hand?

And there are, as I referenced, there are diversions. tools that we can draw up on. It's really exciting that all of this work is happening. And I think that a lot of people listening can hear all of these solutions. But at the same time, for people who might not know, and I think you both would be very good people to talk to you for answers for this. But a lot of people might think, wow, this is a lot of effort to put into this. Why is it important? Why bring wolves back when they've been gone for so long? Why is this now so important to be doing? Well, I'm sure Joe and I both have very similar answers to this. Ultimately, putting wolves back in as much of their former range as possible is morally the right thing to do. It's also, and more importantly, ecologically, the right thing to do because wolves for eons were one of the primary driving forces behind the health of their prey and the landscapes that they shared with those prey animals. It's as simple as that. We had no right morally to eradicate wolves in the first place.

The idea that wolves are being forced onto people, if you will, or certain communities, is understandable on one human level, but a bunch of BS on the other. The fact is they shouldn't have been eliminated in the first place. If they hadn't been, and they were still just simply here as part of the carnivore suite, this wouldn't be a, big fight. But because they were eliminated by the government on behalf of a small industry and also as part of the whole collective catastrophe that was white expansion over North America, here we are. And so a few of us have decided we're going to stick our nose to the grindstone and try to make things right again. And no apologies about that. That said, we do know what the future is. And it is trying to help people reintegrate, as Dr. Blambert were saying, that kind of mentality.

And yeah, I mean, well, well said, Rob. And I would just add to that that, yeah, regardless of how one view species as, you know, either a product of literally millions of years of natural selection and evolution or, you know, God's creations, right? regardless of how you think about species, there are absolutely ethical elements to all of what we have brought as a species as a species on this planet. And to that point, what I will always in any setting, any forum that I am in, and I teach, you know, conservation biology here at University of Colorado Boulder, I teach, you know, right now I'm teaching a course called Wildlife and Rewilding in any interview, anything I do, I will say the same thing over and over and over again.

And until it becomes as much a part of our conversation in vernacular as climate. And that is, we are living in the sixth extinction, right? We are living in a biodiversity extinction crisis. We are poised to lose over, these are best estimates, but over a million species in the next couple of decades. Wow. Unless we start doing something, unless we start, you know, doing, making some audacious moves as a species to rectify what we have done, right? I am absolutely, you know, as we all are as a group at Rocky Mountain Wolf Project,

absolutely sympathetic to the concerns of individuals. This is, you know, this was the result of an inset of individuals making decisions. that now has implications for individuals, right? So, but I do not think that we should lose the forest for the trees. And the forest here is that the forest is burning down. And anything that we can do to address that, right? And this has only been going on. I mean, this is recent, right?

This is just over the past few decades that this has been going on. We have an array of strategies and tactics. tactics as conservation biologists to do something about what we have brought on earth, right? And one of those some things, one of those strategies comes in the form of rewilding through reintroduction. And that is why I will go, I will go to my grave making that argument because I've watched firsthand as someone as a conservation biologist who's been doing this for over 35 years in various settings around the world. I have studied species, populations that have declined, in some cases completely blinked out, right? I've watched this firsthand and anything that we can do,

not only is going to rectify the wrongs that we have brought on this earth, but it's also going to give our young people hope, right? I have to get up and lecture to students that are 18 to 22 years old, right, that are coming in like, oh, what are we going to do? What, you know, what have you baby boomers done to our earth? Well, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. But when you can go into a classroom or you could, whether it's primary, secondary, graduate, whatever, if you can go into a classroom and say, okay, you guys, guess what? You know why we now have gray wolves in Colorado? Because a group of citizens got together and made it happen and that gives hope. And as soon as you have a piece of hope or as soon as you feel like

there is action that can be taken, right? You know, leaving hope aside, just action, then you are catalyzed instead of paralyzed. And that is what we need more of so that we don't lose the forest for the trees or that we don't lose a million species. And again, maybe those will be the last words beyond my deathbed and that'll and that'll be the way I'll go out fighting. Well, the passion that you have is just, I mean, it's tangible. Like, I can feel it through my screen and it's incredibly inspiring to see somebody so, you know, just live their life according to their beliefs. Because a lot of people have opinions and beliefs and then do nothing about it because, you know, life gets in the way or there's other responsibilities or whatever. And it's great to have,

you know, opinions and beliefs, but it's in a net. it's an entire other thing to mirror your life regarding them. And I just think it's great. And I just have to ask both of you, you know, why, why wolves? With all of the overwhelming issues that we just kind of touched upon, why this species? Because wolves are so symbolic, I think that it is important for the current collective human psyche that we show that we can respect them for what they are, for their ability to be basically the engine of evolution. Yeah. And why wolves there are, as Rob suggested, I mean, they're, oh, they're so iconic, right?

And Danielle, I believe you said it at the outset. Like, everybody has an opinion about a wolf, right? In fact, most people have never seen a wolf in real life, right? And yet, you know, they loom large in our psyche, in our history. And indeed, as a species, we've shared landscapes with them, you know, at least for 70,000 years as humans entered into the northern hemisphere out of about. Africa and then encountered great wolves. So, you know, there's the looming large element and the sort of symbolism and the iconic nature of Canis Lupus. There are multiple other arguments, right? We could make the arguments from a science-based perspective, right, that as we convert landscapes,

as we impact other species around the world, the category, and now I'll speak directly to terrestrial systems, but the category or the grouping of species that we are losing the most are those species that occupy this apex predator position, right? And, you know, around the world, think about the landscapes that you've been in where you know there are apex predators. There are very, very few of them, and they tend to be constrained to national parks, not just here, but around the world, right? And what we know now from, you know, superb world, a lot of which comes out of Yellowstone National Park, but at other sites around the world as well,

is that when you put apex predators back whence they came, that there are cascading effects on populations of the rest of the food web. Right. And so we could come at it from, as we were referencing earlier, the ethical and moral element of it, the sort of iconic piece of it, the ecological aspects of it. I mean, there are multiple pieces of it.

There's also, you know, a lot of nonprofits and governmental organizations, IUCN, for example, will engage with a tactic that uses charismatic megafauna as a device to get people's attention, right? Like the polar bears and, yeah, save the polar bears, save the pandas, yeah. Panda bears were the first, right? Like WWF coming up with panda bears because people, and they're. They tend to be large body. They tend to be mammals. They tend to be really charismatic.

And, you know, there are a number of people that have very, very, you know, vitriolic responses to wolves. But then there are a whole lot of folks that have the opposite response, right? And wolves, quite honestly, make an excellent, what we would call flagship species. And so that is, you know, that is a tactic that can be used as a group of. of conservation practitioners is the use of a flagship species and wolves make a good one. Yeah. Looking at wolves in Colorado from an ecological standpoint, what have been the effects on the environment since they were eradicated and what do you expect to be the positive impacts

now that they are back reintroduced? Should I jump in? You should. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, and I'll let Rob Chironinan, I don't want to nominate here, but I think we've all seen it firsthand. And that is if you think about driving in Vermont, right, being on I-80 and Illinois, what do you run into at night? White Tail? Tons of deer. D.R. D.R. D.R. What if you're spending, if you're eating an ice cream cone in Estes Park, right, that's right up the road from me here in the front range, it's adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park. You'll run in.

into tons of elk. Hundreds of elk as they walk down Main Street, right? So I think, or I don't think, I know that the most conspicuous indicator of what happens when you don't have an intact food web, when you remove apex predators, is that the animal, the prey species that those predators are consuming become vastly overabundant. right and what happens then is that those foods that those prey species are consuming namely you know uh all the brows and the grays right the plant communities get um get mowed down right to the and this this is not something that is has been recent just recently noted these observations come back a good

date back to you know right about the time that folks started to realize that that maybe we should stop killing predators. Aldo Leopold in the 40s made the, was, you know, the initial voice in suggesting that maybe we should be putting wolves back where they used to be. And he indeed suggested Yellowstone National Park as as that initial site. And eventually, of course, that occurred in the mid-90s. So that kind of predator prey plant set of interactions is, is one of the most conspicuous aspects of what we've been doing as we remove apex predators from landscapes. And speaking about, you know, what you see, like just even, and I know a lot of people

wouldn't put it together, but just for an example that I think a lot of people that have visited Rocky Mountain in particular can relate to is all the wiring around the saplings and the small trees just to protect them from grazing of the elk. the elk are just, you know, not only are there tons of them. They're very cool with just hanging out because they have no one to fear, nowhere to go, nowhere to be, and just kind of sit around and just mosey along and they're not continuously moving like they would be if there was a large apex predator in the landscape. And obviously that has detrimental effects on, like you said, the brows and everything. But yeah, just going up and seeing like especially around the Stanley Hotel and like just different

areas in Estes, there's this wiring around all of the trees. And a lot of people wonder what that's about. And I know there is certain other landscaping things that it is for too. But yeah. And it also is a source of important data, right? So a lot of those, those wired in areas that you're seeing both in Rocky Mountain National Park and if you spend time in Yellowstone are what we call exclosure experiments. And so this is a way of being able to document what happens to plant communities in the absence of overgrazing and overbrows. And it's really, again, you know, conspicuous, right? So when those plant species aren't over exploited by herbivores like elk and deer, they have a chance to recruit more individual plants and they tend to, you know, they tend to. you know, they tend to grow taller.

And so it's also an important source of data to demonstrate just how closely interactive all of these species are. Right. Unfortunately, Rob had to step away for a work emergency. So for the remainder of the episode, we will just be talking to Joanna. Just touching, kind of pivoting, because you brought up the prey species, I know a big concern of, you know, we have kind of the ranching community, but we also have the hunting. community who is worried about, you know, what the presence of wolves is going to do for how that's

going to affect prey species that they're also wanting to hunt. And you hear a lot of concerns regarding numbers and prey availability and things like that. So can you touch on that in Colorado, particularly what prey numbers are like right now? Are they in danger of being wiped out by wolves? You know, just elaborate on that. So we, we, The last winter count of elk in Colorado was 301,000 in the state of Colorado. We have the largest, most abundant elk population in the country and arguably in the world. So service elaphis or elk is also found throughout the northern hemisphere in Eurasia. They're called red deer.

And so we actually, in terms of density, have the highest density of elk slash red deer. So there's that part of it, right? The other part of it is that it is true. Hunters are concerned, right? And elk do move differently and they do become less naive, right, and in the presence of Apex predators and therefore more challenging for outfitters to find and for hunters to take. But it, you know, we're, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife is, is, is, we'll be putting in, you know, 10 to 15 wolves a year for the next three to five years. And so that the effects are going to be largely more diffuse than folks think. Yeah. So chances are there will be. I don't want to discount the effect of what it means to have an apex predator back in a landscape where there are prey species. There will be impacts. There will be. behavioral impacts. And in some areas, there may be fewer of those elk, but we do have this

extraordinary prey base. The other part that I would jump in and say is that as with every other citizen of not only Earth, but more specifically Colorado and the American West, what we should really be more concerned about when it comes to the distribution of animals like elk is habitat loss in climate change and disease, right? So we know, I mean, reports by various state agencies are demonstrating over and over again that it's the loss of habitat to things like sub-development, right, to the clearing of areas for, you know, the creation of new, you know, roads or, you know, various built structures that forest fire is a consequence or wildfire is a consequence of drier seasons.

And, you know, I mean, when was, it's like 60 today, right? Right. And then we have as we, those of us in the West are like, right now, at least some of us are terrified about what this is going to hold. This season is going to hold for wildfires this summer, right? And so it's wildfire, it's climate change, it's habitat loss. And then also disease that are really the, the, the, it's, the drivers, or I hate using that word as an ecologist, but the incredibly important variables

that are influencing what prey species are doing, right? And, you know, Doug Smith, the longstanding lead wolf biologists at Yellowstone National Park has, you know, made the argument that, you know, that we shouldn't be worried about what wolves did to elk in Yellowstone, right? The consequence of not having an apex predator in Yellowstone and having an extraordinarily overly abundant population of elk in Yellowstone leads to these really, really just devastating die-offs, right, that are a consequence of starvation and disease, right? Because numbers of elk become unsustainable, right? They overbrows, right?

And then in periods where, you know, there may be drought or wildfire or, you know, the plants aren't as abundant as those alpneed, we see these periods of starvation, which are arguably, you know, we have the data to demonstrate this, having a greater impact on those total numbers. So I think it's really important to think about the fact that, you know, predator prey interaction, sure, that's a part of the form. of what happens in terms of total numbers of animals, but these other effects, what we call extrinsic effects of food availability, disease, habitat availability, climate are huge. And those are the things that we need to be thinking about in a very big way, not just in the Western Slope of Colorado, but on planet Earth in general. I love the way you said all of that because you made a really big point there where this project, it is about wolves, but it's not just about wolves because there are so many things that I think a lot of people aren't realizing when you say,

whether you're on the side of not reintroducing them or reintroducing them, people may not realize that there's so much implications that do coincide with climate change. when you take away an apex predator and you have this overgrazing of all these plants, you're also affecting all the other animals that are within the area, within the region. You're also affecting all the other plant life that's within the region. And think about that in terms of carbon sequestration, right? There are all these really, really important meta-analyses that have been done, you know, in different areas of the world that demonstrate the significance of all of these interactions

you know, for carbon sequestration, right? We need these intact food webs and intact animal assemblages to, you know, to start balancing what's happening to the, you know, the carbon load of, you know, both terrestrial and then atmospheric, right? And so that is a big part. But that sounds lofty, right? You can't go in terms of making these arguments if you've got like a, you know, three sentence blurred in a piece in the LA Times. You can't, you know, you can't necessarily start off with

carbon sequestration because people are right. They like, they're like, people just read over it. Yeah. They're like, and what's that? I don't know. Now, wolves in my backyard, that is something I know about. Right. You know, you really have to kind of balance those arguments. The other part of it, you know, and there are numerous economic arguments that we could make, you know. So for example, All of those mule deer and white-tailed deer, an elk that are being horrifically collided into by vehicles, you know, on highways around the country. That is extraordinarily expensive, not only clearly in terms of funds, but also in terms of life, right? Human life, right? And we know there was a really nice piece that scientific paper, that peer-reviewed scientific paper that came, gosh, I don't remember the date that was last, last,

year, some time that demonstrated exactly that, right, that the costs of vehicular collision of, you know, of into like deer go way down in areas where there are apex predators, right? So that is another piece of it. There are also, there's a really important initiative that is going on in Paradise Valley, north of Yellowstone National Park, where all of the, you know, whole, you know, whole, rail, at last count, it was about at least 180 small business owners who make their living off of the wildlife, right, in a non-consumptive way, in many ways, right, that they need those wildlife on the landscape. And if those wildlife aren't around, if they're getting

over-exploited, if they're getting over-hunted, you know, that it impacts them as business owners as outfitters as well. And so that initiative for your listeners is the Wild Livelihoods initiative in Paradise Valley. And they were as a body were successful in lobbying for the reduction of or the removal of a no quota hunting season on wolves because of that exact argument that that so many, you know, tour guides and outfitters rely on things like you know, having intact landscapes with with predators on them, that that was a very successful economic argument as well. Well, there's also the, you know, tourism dollars. We saw, especially in Yellowstone, I mean, the amount of money that is being spent at the park and

in the surrounding communities because people travel there to see the wolves and other large predators, of course. Do you think that that has, that potential will unfold here? Do you think at any point in our national parks? Yeah, that's a really good question. Western Colorado is not Yellowstone, right? So Yellowstone, as you, as I'm sure most of your listeners know, is a truly remarkable place, right? best place literally in the world to see wild wolves in person, right? But, you know, that's a national park with these great roads that bisect the national you know, throughout the park. Yeah.

Where you can set up scopes, right, and watch those wolves. And for the most part, we, you know, we really don't have those kinds of viewing circumstances here. Now, that's not to say that that won't, that having wolves in the land. won't impact eco-tourism. There are a lot of folks that will come to Colorado simply knowing that, wow, maybe if I'm, you know, backpacking, you know, maybe I'll hear a wolf at night and how cool is that, right? Or just knowing that there's a little bit of the wild left in Colorado.

And yeah, oh my God. I can just, that is just so profound because I particularly, you know, I've lived in Washington State and when I was in the North Cascades, just hiking around. Like, I never saw anything, but just knowing that there are a small handful of grizzlies there. There's a small handful of wolves there. There's, you know, obviously tons of coyotes and mountain lions and things like that. And on paper, that might be a little frightening. But when you're actually there and people who love nature and love wildlife, just even knowing that you're breathing the same air as apex predators and animals that have always been there and truly deserve to be there, it's just so different

than, you know, when I'm hiking here over the years, even, you know, especially before the wolf reintroduction, which obviously, just so everyone knows is very recent, December 18th was it, of 2023 was the reintroduction. I was there. Yeah. Oh my God. What a day. Yeah. It's like I just have this thought of, you know, looking out into Western Colorado and all this beautiful landscape and all this expanse and just thinking how sad, how sad that there is just, I mean, obviously we don't have grizzlies anymore. We don't have wolves. We don't have,

you know, it's just like it feels empty and kind of like a waste a little bit. You know, like yeah, there's wildlife, but it's such an imbalance and it's not the way that it has always been or is supposed to be and has the potential to be. And it's just now that we're moving forward with, you know, yes, this is just one reintroduction effort in one state. But do you think that we'll be seeing more of this type of thing in the West or throughout the U.S.? Yeah. Sure hope so. And you know, Colorado is poised to be, regardless of the varying perspectives that folks might have on this. And there are diverse perspectives. And I'm just one of those, right? I'm just, but, you know, we are poised to be like the hub of rewiling and

reintroduction, right? So Colorado Parks and Wildlife has already put back otters into, you know, while even on the river that I live on, the North St. Grain that comes out of Rocky Mountain National the park, putting back links, right, Canada links into the Rocky Mountains in the 90s. We put back Ray Wolves. Was there a moose reintroduction here? Moose, where six, yeah, moose population was put back in. There are, it's looking very, very favorable that we'll be putting back Wolverine in the next few years. Wow. So, you know, to me, this gives me great, a source of, of great pride in this We've got, you know, this remarkable state agency forward-thinking state wildlife agency with some, you know, superb scientists that are at the helm of these initiatives.

And, you know, I may be aberrant. I'm a little bit, you got to be a little cray-cray to be the person that I am, which means, you know, when I was, even though I was born and raised in the city as a young girl, all I wanted to do was to be away from cities and at a young age, you know, filled up a backpack and went off and lived in a tent for a year and a half and Equatorial Africa to study wild chimpanzees. And I'm happiest in places, and I'll say this, and it always sounds crazy. But, you know, I'm happiest in places where I know there's something that can eat me. You're talking to the right people.

And we know. We get it. You know, there have been folks that have talked about ecological boredom. We live in an ecologically boring world, right? And bringing back some of the wildness that was around just, you know, just even a few decades ago can address some of that. And not everybody feels this way. I really want to be careful about this, you know,

because what I might blithely or, you know, flippantly call, you know, whatever. I want to be in landscapes where things eat me. And that's what I do. I go to the most remote parts of the world to study wild animals and to run around looking for those wild animals because that's what I do for my research. But those individuals that are trying to make a living, well, I am making a living doing that actually. That's what you do. But those folks that are making a living growing livestock may absolutely think differently about this. But there's a huge percentage of our population that does have this kind of either ecological grief, as it's been called, ecological boredom, that is, again, a byproduct of what we've been doing to our Earth,

as we disrupt food webs and remove, you know, wild things. And so putting some of those wild things back is a really important, something that we can do. And we've demonstrated, the beauty thing is that we've demonstrated that. we can do it. Yeah. This was happening. Standing out in front of REI, standing out in front of, you know, whatever, getting signatures, right? And it worked.

And that's awesome. And I think going forward, it's more of a collective, instead of learning to live alongside wolves, it's kind of a collective remembering. Because bringing it back to what you said in the beginning for seven, thousand years or whatever the number was, we've done that. And yes, we lived differently. Our lives were differently. The world was different. And it's not going to be the same, but it can be done. It has been done. And it's just figuring out how to do that. And I think that the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project has obviously made a huge step forward in that. And obviously is continuing

to do that through the efforts, even though you guys are now, what, five members. And I know you said you're all volunteer-based, but just to kind of wrap things up, you know, people I know that are listening, especially that live here in the state, that are inspired or, you know, want to do what they can to support the wolf reintroduction or to better educate themselves on the issues that are going on in the state, where would you best direct them to do those things? Yeah, so Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the first place I would go to is the CPW.com. They have, essentially they are publishing these, what they're calling wolf news, right? So they are continuously updating that a couple of weeks ago.

They put out a map of where the wolves are right now. This is based on the collars that those wolves are wearing. So they can stay up to date on that. There are also numerous ways that your listeners can support this effort. I think the most important thing, wolves are going to do. given half a chance, wolves do well. Gray wolves, gray wolves do very well. So that is not the issue.

The issue is that every, like every other conservation initiative that we're engaged in as professionals, you know, how this is all going to go down is about the people involved, right? And so that those conversations need to continue to unfold in various settings through education and also through conflict reduction and the recognition, again, that the costs and benefits are not equally distributed. How that can go down is honestly through financial support, right? Go get your wolf plate. Yeah, go get your wolf plate.

You know, the Lookup Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. We've got a donate button, you know, right on our website. All of those funds, you can rest assured that every single penny of those funds, goes directly to offset conflict between predators and livestock producers on the Western slope. So remaining educated, which is, you know, doing a Google search, going to CPW sites, donating when and where possible is really important. Amazing.

As the Krispy Chicken Sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold. I'm juicy.

Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me. And baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet. No. Crispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

Valley through 62326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. And you mentioned this a little bit in brief passing earlier, but you mentioned that over the next couple of years that the project is planning to reintroduce 10 to 15 wolves over the next few years. But what are the future goals of Rocky Mountain Wolf Project as a whole? Yeah. And so, you know, those 10 to 15 wolves per year over three to five years, those were outlined in the so-called wolf plan. It's called the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan that

was put out by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and then approved by the commission of the parks and wildlife. So all of those, and I would encourage listeners to look into that. That's readily downloadable off the CPW side. It's an amazing wolf plan. You know, I think one of the best out there. I mean, it's not perfect, but hindsight always reveals that and it'll be continued, you know, in the future, revised, so it's not perfect, but it's incredibly detailed and forward thinking. And so I mentioned that because those 10 to 15 wolves per year are going to be, oh, that's the purview of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, right? Not Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. With regards to Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, R&WP, we will continue to engage in conflict reduction and the maximization of coexistence

of predators and of humans in sharing landscapes. That and in every, you know, way that we can think of from, you know, education, science communication, that as the science advisor to our MWP, that is what I'm engaged in the most. Again, all of this is not our day job, right? The five of us are doing this as, you know, sort of in our off time from our day jobs. But, yes, science communication. Yeah.

So that's that's what we're involved in is trying to make this work because this is, this is not, this didn't end once wolves went in to the Western Slope in December, right? It's started. We're now just getting started. Yeah. So I have two final questions. One, just the clarification. Just I know a lot of people are kind of like, well, where are these wolves coming from?

Are they even native to the Colorado, like da-da-da? So I know that some of the individuals, if not all came from Oregon this time around. Is that correct? Yes. Is that kind of the continual plan or is it just going to adjust as the time goes on where the individuals are coming from? Yeah. So, yeah, to add some context to that, it was biologically, it makes a lot of sense to get the wolves

from the Northern Rockies, right? They're adapted to the consumption of elk, right? And I mentioned that because there is another population of gray wolves, and that is in the Upper Midwest, Michigan, you know, Minnesota. Great Lakes area. Right, right, Great Lakes. But they're consuming different prey and sort of biologically, genetically, you know, somewhat divergent from the Northern Rockies. And our vision was to get a contiguous population of wolves from the northern Rockies to the Southern Rockies. So biologically, it makes a lot of sense in terms of what they're consuming, you know, having large paws for hunting in snow, hunting those elk. Now, so what that means is that those wolves could have theoretically come from Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, right? Those states were

unwilling to provide wolves for my dog is sleeping and barking. Dreaming. But those states were unwilling to give wolves.

So there are wolves in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington. And ultimately it was Eastern Oregon that said, yes, we will eat some of our wolves. Now they have a pretty small population It was something in, you know, the 180-something total wolves.

So they agreed to 10 wolves, this. Okay. You know, conversations are still going on with the tribes, confederated tribes of the sovereign nations of indigenous populations of the American West. And so that may very well be a source for the next set of wolves that will be coming in in this year of 2024, conversations. I'm not priv to these conversations. This is strictly, you know, between the state agency and other states and First Nations. So, but yeah, there are other sources that, that may present themselves in the coming years. And of course, yeah, there have been, I know a lot of people

know this, but some don't. There have been wolves that have come naturally down without any reintroduction effort, just natural, you know, migration patterns and things like that. I read in 2014, not even 15 miles from me, there was a collared wolf that was hit and killed by a car. So it's, they do happen. I mean, there are people in the wolf world know this. But for others, you know, that there are other individuals that may be present just on their own, not reintroduced. Incredibly rare, right? So just a handful.

And that was part of it, because that did come up in our conversations like, are they going to get here anyway, right? And just a handful and the vast majority of them, not all, were, have been killed in one way or another, either being hit by a car or poison or shot. Right. And so it was ultimately determined that biologically the likelihood of enough individual wolves successfully navigating, getting through Wyoming and then making it to Colorado was unlikely to ever. It's like the gauntlet. They have to like run the gauntlet. Yeah. And and you know, 84% of Wyoming is a predator control area, so where wolves can be shot, can and are shot. And so, and then ecologically is a very difficult area for them to get through this region known as the Red Desert.

It's, it's not ideal habitat in terms of prey availability. So that has been an important part of this conversation is that and getting enough wolves. here in, you know, in a timely fashion to result in a biologically sort of viable population was unlikely through natural dispersion, hence the reintroduction. I have one last question, unless you have something Cassie, because it's not, it's not anything deep. It's just, no, go for it. I just want to know, how did you feel on December 18th? Oh, God, you guys. So as I hinted or may have said, I've explicitly, you know, I've been doing this a long time, working with wild animals,

working, you know, towards trying to protect species and habitat and populations in different parts of the world. It's a long game, right? And in many cases, it doesn't work. And in many cases, I've gone back to areas where I've worked for a long time and circumstances are actually worse for wildlife and in many cases worse for humans in terms of livelihood and well-being. And that's, and it's hard, right? Conservation is, you know, when anybody asks me to describe what conservation biology is, I always say, well, conservation biology and reality is about having a lot of really, really difficult conversations that might be awkward and challenging, but showing up and doing them anyway, right? And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Being there on December 18th, you know, and I'm of a certain age, and I've been doing this a long time, and I can say unequivocally, that was the, as soon as I heard this, and you could have heard a pin drop, you know, it was silent. And then all of a sudden, the sound of the first crate, you know, the door opening and the, you know, explosion of, of wolf as he pushed off with his back paws, you know, off the back of the crate out, and then suddenly literally paused on the ground. That was the single most definitive, unequivocal moment of my career. It was, it was, it was right there. There was no like, oh, maybe this will work, you know, maybe it won't. No, this would. No, this would. was unequivocal definitive evidence.

There's a wolf. It is now in Colorado. And this is only happening because of Proposition 114. And I described it to a few reporters afterwards that I had for my whole life, I've heard this expression of I was left breathless. That was the first time I'd ever experienced it. And I didn't even know that was that I'd never experienced it until that moment. because when that moment occurred, the oxygen in my lungs just literally exhale.

I visibly exhale and was breathless. It was extraordinary. It was the sensory elements of it, the sound, the way it smelled, those wolves, that wolves have a natural smell, right? and you could smell those animals that first, that first wolf, you know, ran by me, you know, just within a few feet. It was extraordinary. You know, I'll die happy because of that moment. It's so nice to hear. It's just so cool. It's so cool to hear, especially just hearing before this, like this, throughout this entire conversation, the work that was put into it and then reaching that final moment of we did it. for here. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was one of the people along with Rob and a few others that delivered those signatures. You know, I did the ad commercials, you know, the and those seemed really back now that I,

at the moment, at the time, it felt like, oh my God, this is huge. But, you know, now looking back, it was, everything was still abstract, right? It was still just an idea, a really, really awesome, audacious idea, this vision that Mike Phillips had really in 2014 when he first proposed it. But then all of a sudden, to have it be real in the form of, you know, this gorgeous animal, again, whether you call this animal, God's creatures or the result of national selection, whatever, it was incredible. So, yeah. Well, thank you so much for sticking with us and talking us through all of that. And I mean, I personally could keep you on the phone for the next four hours. But thank you for going over all of that. And just being such a voice and advocate, I know you have a lot going on. And like you've mentioned, this is your side job. But it seems like it's a passion. And yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and like, to you. Like, thank you for what you do. You're bringing this voice. You're bringing this voice

to the people. So thank you for what you do. And we're all, you know, we all got to, we all got to do our bit, you know. That's right. Well, thank you guys so much for this very insightful conversation. I feel like we answered a lot of questions and learned a lot today. So thank you all for listening. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at npadpodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content.

And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at npadpodcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average.

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