Opinion: New Colorado governor has opportunity to modernize wildlife conservation

The founding and history of Colorado is dominated by a few natural resource-based industries that defined much of our economy and our politics for decades and decades — mining, ranching, outfitting and oil and gas. I call it Old Colorado.

My ancestors grew up in Old Colorado and participated in shaping its now-romanticized history. They were American peasants who came to Colorado after the Civil War, seeking work. They believed that our natural resources were inexhaustible and were simply grateful to have jobs that depended on them.

They worked as ranchers at Radium, hard-rock miners in Creede and Bachelor, and railroad engineers, yardmen and brakemen on the Georgetown Loop — people with dirt under their fingernails who hunted and fished and lived tough, often short, lives. Good, decent people who scraped along at the edge of economic subsistence, saving nothing.

Ironically, in December 2023, I was fortunate enough to be present when the first gray wolves were released into the wild at Radium, a stone’s throw from our old family ranch. The reintroduction of wolves, demanded by the voters of New Colorado, represented a tangible effort to make up for the ecological injuries inflicted by Old Colorado.

As the next governor of Colorado, Phil Weiser undoubtedly is already being lobbied heavily by the representatives of Old Colorado — particularly the conservative hunting, outfitting and ranching communities — to select leadership at Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources and Colorado Parks and Wildlife who will maintain the “shoot them all and let God sort them out” style of management that has led to disastrous consequences for our state’s wildlife.

☀ MORE IN OPINION

For the first time in history, the always-fatal chronic wasting disease is spreading inexorably through our deer, elk and moose herds, driving those herds toward eventual collapse. Nearly half of Colorado’s wildlife are listed in CPW’s State Wildlife Action Plan , including 405 species that have declined to the point where they now need special conservation help if they are to recover, many of which are headed toward extinction. It also includes another 207 species for which, remarkably, the state agency that has been managing wildlife in Colorado for a century and a quarter does not even know if they are headed toward extinction.

Colorado has already suffered its first collapsed ecosystem — the beaver-willow ecosystem of the Kawuneeche Valley of Rocky Mountain National Park. The long-term absence of gray wolves, the last of which was killed off by Old Colorado in 1940, enabled elk and moose to graze without fear of predation in the open valley floor, decimating its willows and depriving the beaver of food and material for building dams.

But despite representing only a fraction of Colorado’s population, Old Colorado is a scrappy bunch who have held sway over our wildlife management policies for well over a century and continue to work hard to protect their influence in that realm.

Old Colorado dominates the Agriculture and Natural Resources committees of the state legislature, which work hard to ensure that the control of CPW’s Commission is maintained by commissioners who share their conservative wildlife management goals and will vote in lockstep with the sensibilities, expectations and demands of Colorado’s hunting, outfitting and ranching communities.

Thanks to the state legislature, millions of wildlife-loving Coloradans have the opportunity to fill, at most, two of 11 at-large seats on the CPW Commission. By design, their values and expectations are irrelevant to CPW.

Consequently, today, CPW is an anachronism, out of step with the modern values of the vast majority of Coloradans but protected from need to change by an alliance of Republicans and Western Slope Democrats in the state legislature who believe that sacrificing the state’s wildlife is a sure path to electoral success.

I expect there is considerable inertia in every political system. Wildlife management may be especially susceptible to it, as the decisions of the agency can be hard to follow by those not trained in ecology — which includes almost everyone. Our default setting is to go along and trust that the agency is making the right calls and basing its decisions on benevolent instincts and sound science. But the results of a century and a quarter of mismanagement of Colorado’s wildlife tell a different story.

We live in an era of climate change and biodiversity loss, both of which are existential threats to humanity. Colorado can only do so much to stop climate change, but we can recover our wildlife and give our ecosystems a fighting chance to survive over the coming decades.

Gov.-elect Weiser has an opportunity to modernize the agency, change its culture and help us get there. I am hopeful and even optimistic that he will seize it.

Eric Washburn, of Steamboat Springs, is a fifth-generation Coloradan and big-game hunter.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy . Learn how to submit a column . Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com .

Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook .

Type of Story: Opinion

Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.

Eric Washburn, of Steamboat Springs, is a fifth-generation Coloradan and big game hunter. More by Eric Washburn

Post navigation