The Hidden Slippery Slopes of Animal Reintroduction Programs

Reintroduction programs in which individuals of different species are taken from one area where they currently live to other locations where others of their species once lived are becoming increasingly popular.¹ This means, of course, that the individuals who are moved around have not had any experience in the habitats where they are to be repatriated or with the nonhumans or humans with whom they are to share space.

Colorado's Wolf Reintroduction Project

As a representative example of repatriation programs, I'll focus on Colorado's efforts to reintroduce wolves to certain areas where they once lived before they were killed off by humans in 1945. In late 2020, a ballot initiative called Proposition 114 passed by a narrow margin of 50.4 percent of the vote. Why was it so close? Needless to say, the narrow victory reflects significant disagreements not only between supporters and opponents but also even within these camps. It also meant that wolves became political bargaining chips.

Many people have asked me to weigh in on the wolf reintroduction project in my home state, so here I simply want to raise some important issues that many people either gloss over and write off as unimportant or about which they're unaware.

Let me be clear: I do want to see wolves back home in Colorado. Rather than using what I call the "dump and pray" strategy of reintroducing naive but native animals to new environs—which basically means removing them from one area, placing them in another location, and hoping they'll survive and make more of themselves—I favor doing as much homework as possible beforehand to ensure the success of a given program.

The issues are deeply rooted in biology, behavioral ecology, community ecology, psychology, philosophy, and anthrozoology (the study of human–animal relationships).

What right do we have to move individuals from one place to another? Should we try to manage nature, or should we take more of a hands-off approach? Some people argue that we are responsible for restoring an area to reflect its native fauna and flora, and only we can do it. They're right that only we can do it if we choose to do so, but there are also examples of animals "coming home" on their own.²

Should we do this when individuals who are moved around aren't granted legal protection? Individuals will be harmed and killed even if they are protected by existing laws, and if they're not, I fear that an increasing number will be harmed and killed.

What happens to the wolves and wolf packs in the areas from which some wolves are taken? I raised this question a few years ago at a meeting and some people were very upset by it; however, no one could answer it. I was surprised and didn't ask the question to be adversarial but rather because, when animals are taken from one area to another, the social behavior and social organization of those remaining can radically change and have negative influences on their lives. There's little doubt that the wolves who are left in an area will undergo major changes in social behavior and social organization when group members and others are removed, and this is one argument wolf advocates give for why hunting wolves can decimate local packs and populations of wolves.

What it comes down to is that removing and relocating animals is sort of like robbing Peter to pay Paul—taking wolves from an area where they had good lives and moving them where many of their lives will likely not be so good.

What happens when relocated wolves compete with and kill other animals? After wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, they obliterated coyotes in some areas such as in the Lamar Valley where there were ongoing studies that came to an end.³ Is this acceptable? Answers vary across the board, but, in my view, it isn't. Some people said something like, "Well, there are numerous coyotes and very few wolves." However, playing the numbers game as many people including conservationists do disregards the fact that the lives of the individual coyotes who were violently killed were important to them and are no less valuable than the lives of the individual wolves who slaughtered them.

What about the fact that wolves also will kill prey, including so-called "livestock," who otherwise would not have been killed? The lives of wild animals and of "food animals" are valuable to the individuals themselves, and I'm sure they don't want to be harmed and killed. Some people write this off as a silly question, but it isn't.

"Being for" Animals and "Coexistence" Mean Different Things to Different People

Blind faith in reintroduction programs means some animals will be harmed and killed who otherwise would have gone on to live more normal lives. Some wolves will die to help others of their species, and these sorts of trade-offs don't work for me because the life of every single individual matters to the individual, and every life should matter to us. Individual wolves don't care if their species goes extinct.

"Being for" animals means different things to different people, and I honor and understand these differences. Regardless, we need more serious and open discussion of the above questions and others to be sure that when wolves make it back to Colorado, they will be able to survive and thrive. After all, that's the goal of the program.

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"Coexistence" also means different things to different people, and "killing in the name of coexistence" or "killing in the name of conservation" makes no sense to me.

Colorado's wolf reintroduction program raises numerous important questions, and I hope that wolves will someday roam Colorado, they will be legally protected, and the views of supporters and opponents and the animals themselves—all stakeholders—will be taken into account to ensure that each and every wolf will be able to survive and thrive. Building trust is essential.

Preparing for this eventually will be better for wolves and humans, rather than 20–20 hindsight—"Oh, we should have thought about or done this or that"—and Colorado's program can serve as a model for other ambitious and controversial projects.

We decide who lives, who dies, and why, and this powerful position is not a license to kill. It does, however, mean that killing or allowing other animals to be killed shouldn't be written off as "collateral damage" for the good of a species, as some people casually put it.

Update, 11 April:

Lauren Boebert and fellow Republicans want gray wolves removed from federal endangered species list

Colorado’s U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert and 23 other Republican members of Congress wrote federal officials this month, asking that they remove the gray wolves from the federal endangered species list.