Governor Weiser Faces Pressure on DNR Wildlife Management

Will Phil Weiser pick a Department of Natural Resources secretary who actually understands that the elk are dying?

That is the question sitting on every Western Slope resident’s desk right now. The new governor has a choice to make, and the clock is ticking.

The Colorado Sun published an opinion piece on Nov. 12 that lays out the stakes with brutal clarity. The author argues that Colorado’s wildlife management has been stuck in "Old Colorado" for over a century. That era was defined by mining, ranching, and outfitting. It relied on a simple, outdated philosophy: shoot them all and let God sort it out.

That philosophy is failing.

Chronic wasting disease is no longer a distant threat in the mountains. It is spreading inexorably through our deer, elk, and moose herds. The disease is always fatal. It is driving those herds toward eventual collapse. We are watching it happen in real time.

The numbers back up the urgency. According to CPW’s State Wildlife Action Plan, nearly half of Colorado’s wildlife are listed for special conservation help. That includes 405 species that have declined to the point where they need immediate attention to recover. Many are headed toward extinction.

Read that again. Four hundred and five species.

There is a second, quieter crisis hiding in the same report. CPW lists another 207 species for which it does not even know if they are headed toward extinction. The state agency that has managed wildlife in Colorado for a century and a quarter admits it is flying blind on more than two hundred species.

The Kawuneeche Valley in Rocky Mountain National Park offers a case study in what happens when we ignore the food web. The last gray wolf was killed off by "Old Colorado" in 1940. Without predation, elk and moose grazed the open valley floor without fear. They decimated the willows. Without willows, beavers lost their food and building material. The beaver-willow ecosystem collapsed. It is gone.

We have a chance to reverse that trend elsewhere, but only if the management style changes. The opinion piece notes that voters in "New Colorado" demanded wolf reintroduction. In December 2023, the first gray wolves were released at Radium. For a family with roots in that old ranching town, it was a tangible effort to make up for ecological injuries inflicted by the previous era.

Now, Weiser faces the lobbying pressure. The conservative hunting, outfitting, and ranching communities are already knocking on his door. They want leadership at DNR and CPW that maintains the status quo. They want the same managers who presided over the decline of 405 species and the mystery status of another 207.

Old Colorado is a scrappy bunch. Despite representing only a fraction of the state’s population, they have held sway over wildlife management policies for decades. They are not going to go quietly.

Weiser’s appointment of DNR leadership will signal where this administration stands. Will he choose the voices that built the old economy? Or will he pick leaders who acknowledge that the "shoot them all" era is over, and that a century of mismanagement has left us with a system on the brink?

The wolves are back in Radium. The elk are sick. The willows are gone from Kawuneeche.

The question is whether the next governor will look at those facts and act, or look at them and wait.