Federal wildlife managers are finalizing a plan to reintroduce gray wolves into the wild in Colorado.
In 2020, voters approved a proposition to restore the animals in the state nearly a hundred years after wolves were eliminated through an extermination plan backed by the federal government.
In recent years, wolves that have dispersed from Wyoming have been spotted in Colorado and just two male wolves are known to be traveling in the northwestern part of the state.
Conservationists are critical of the federal reintroduction plan and say it would allow for the killing of wolves that prey on livestock and that it doesn’t include a requirement that livestock owners undertake nonlethal preventative measures.
They say the plan opens to the door to conflicts and wolf killings.
Wolf releases in Colorado are set to begin this year.