Ricocheting Findings by State Investigators of 40 Cow Deaths Shows Suspicious Alignment with Green Activist-Backed, Politically Preferred Wolf Reintroduction Plan as Wolves Interact with Livestock

Suspicious Colorado cow deaths over the fall are ensnarling the state’s fearsomely debated wolf reintroduction plan. A provisional version of that plan, part of 2020’s barely-passed Proposition 114, was released in early December. Just days after the early October cattle deaths near Meeker, Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed a Pole Mountain-area wolf attack in Jackson County.

A Steamboat Springs news radio station published a web report featuring an amateur photograph of one of the wolves, reportedly taken on Sept. 18. Two social-media-originating videos, one taken just north of Walden and the other just south of Walden, surfaced on a north-central Colorado newspaper’s website.  Both videos were dated within a one-week span in late September.

An agricultural newsletter published a detailed update on the Meeker cattle losses on Dec. 6. Included were gruesome photographs of at least one dead cow. Gashes in the cow’s tissue very much resemble the shape of some canine muzzle with sharp teeth.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Look Into It

An Oct. 7 press release from state investigators initially said officials were “investigating a report of dead domestic cow calves on White River National Forest lands near Meeker that show damage consistent with wolf depredation.”

With Prop 114, the wildlife officials’ fact-finding mission on possible wolf attacks saturated

Wildlife officials’ fact-finding mission is more than just dead cows. With Prop 114 in the backdrop, their investigation is now snared in a political quandary. Mixed in with this eagerness to prove or disprove wolf involvement are suspicious elements surrounding the state’s investigation. These suspicions include two key lab findings on the Meeker cow losses being ruled inconclusive.

In Conclusion: Inconclusive

After early October, Colorado Parks and Wildlife investigators backed off or retraced their determinations regarding wolf involvement in at least some cattle deaths. As mentioned, investigators collected key pieces of evidence –both of them crucial to ruling on the suspected causes of death – which later came back inconclusive.

Regarding the physical evidence of wolves, numerous media accounts failed to say which or what lab performed the forensics. Nor were any direct forensics sources relayed or quoted in these accounts.

Travis Black, CPW’s Northwest Regional Manager, considered if a bacterial infection was responsible for some of the Meeker-area cow deaths. This was a reasonable inquiry since the earmarks of a wolf attack showed up on only five cattle fatalities. But it was also unlikely since the cows had no accompanying lesions. Nonetheless, the lab results on a bacterial infection were inconclusive as well.

The Grand Junction Sentinel newspaper filled in details but added a key qualifier left out of major media reports. Most news stories relayed how an unspecified lab analysis was employed for fur and droppings at the scene of the cattle attacks. Those stories said the results were inconclusive. Travis Black, quoted in the Sentinel actually said feces and hair retrieved from a fence were “somewhat inconclusive.“

Six Weeks In

“We’re scratching our heads a little bit. We don’t know exactly what has occurred up there,” Black said to Colorado Public Radio.

CPR’s anticlimactic headline emerged six weeks after the first cow deaths, almost a month after Colorado’s election. In that election, the top-down, iron-fisted environmentalist policy created a sharp cultural divide in the state.

Environmentalists, Classical Media and CPW Juggling Micro-Narratives about Cattles’ Causes of Death

Early on, media and CPW did not say they considered clostridial or related bacterial infections. That came later. Altitude sickness was floated as a cause of death for most of the Meeker-area cows. Or some combination of wolves (or possibly cattle dogs) spooking the already ill animals.

An Oct. 20 (updated Nov. 1) article in the Coloradoan squeezes altitude sickness into the realm of possibility. The report consulted two ranching authorities who hadn’t seen the dead animals. Without any quotes, the news item relays rancher Don Gittleson’s cautious agreement that perhaps disease was involved. That agreement comes buried in academic data about elevation sickness and the fact that the site of the cow deaths is 6000+ feet in elevation.

Environmentalists and Sympathetic Media Seize on Tentative Findings about Wolves

Additionally, environmental activists and green-sympathetic media have pounced on the wobbly backpedaling by CPW. These pro-wolf parties magnified the wildlife officials’ claims of insufficient evidence into a not-guilty verdict for the apex predators.

Prairie Protection Colorado, an environmentalist splinter group of the radical Deep Green Resistance, trumpeted the perseverating conclusions of a Coloradoan article. Linking to the article, the group posted a Facebook screed riddled with all-caps and declaring the wolves innocent. In a loud-but-vague headline, Colorado Public Radio released an article with a single new source: statements from public meetings.

According to CPR, at a Colorado Parks and Wildlife meeting on Nov. 17 and 18, Travis Black said the Meeker-area attacks did not yield any evidence of wolves. He based the claim on trail camera footage, aerial surveys and attempts to get response howls through sonic wolf simulations.

That CPR report, published at 6:23 p.m. on Nov. 17, the first day of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s meetings, indicates the reportage came from a live stream of the video. A CPW video release of the panels is also available on their YouTube page.

The Uncertainty, the Noticeable Hesitancy about Wolf Involvement Is Puzzling

Media and green advocates vocally reported findings that, if part of any court proceedings, would be a mistrial. Colorado Parks and Wildlife point to technicalities, procedures, or lab results and – regarding the scat and fur – some literal hair-splitting. A pattern emerges of a troubling tendency to not fill in any blanks, no matter how small, if they point to wolves having killed cows.

A Nov. 4 letter from Colorado Parks and Wildlife outlined the next steps in Prop 114. Public input meetings on the CPW’s latest plans for Wolf Restoration are scheduled throughout early 2023, including a Jan. 19 meeting in Colorado Springs.

Another take on wolves and livestock are highlighted in Trevor Phipps’ article “Donkeys Serve as Livestock Guardians“.

The Maverick Observer is an online free-thinking publication interested in the happenings in our region. We promote open views without bias. All views are welcome – it is how we learn from each other and grow as a community.