As Colorado prepares to reintroduce more wolves, the state is offering to send out range riders to protect livestock from the new predators.
Some ranchers think it’s a great idea, but others say it’ll be a waste of time.
“I know for a fact that range riding does work, will work,” Krisztina Gayler told Cowboy State Daily.
She did ranch work for 19 years in Colorado, including range riding.
Colorado rancher Howard Cooper told Cowboy State Daily he’s not convinced that state-sponsored range riders will make any difference.
“Unless he (the range rider) has the ability to control — i.e. kill the wolves that are killing livestock — it’s not going to be effective,” he said.
According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), there have been 27 confirmed wolf attacks on livestock since the predators were first reintroduced to the state in December 2023.
Plans are in place to release up to 15 more wolves brought in from British Columbia, Canada, in early 2025. No exact date or release location has been announced by CPW.
Gearing Up For The Next Round of Wolves
Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program has been controversial from the start.
At least one pack of wolves, the North Park pack, established itself naturally in Colorado before the reintroduction program started. That pack was founded around 2019-2020 by Wyoming wolves that migrated into Colorado, but it effectively ceased to exist after a few years.
The North Park pack was blamed for killing livestock and dogs.
The wolf reintroduction program was initiated by Proposition 114, which Colorado voters passed in 2020 by the slimmest of margins, 50.91% to 49.09%.
The first 10 reintroduced wolves were brought in from Oregon. The Copper Creek pack was the first permanent pack that they established after a male and female mated and began having pups.
But that pack ran into trouble when some of its members started attacking livestock in Grand County, Colorado. In August, CPW decided to trap that pack and temporarily put it into captivity.
The male, female and four juvenile pups were captured. A fifth pup evaded capture and remains free.
The male wolf died within days of being captured. CPW stated that it died from previous wounds, possibly from fighting another wolf or being injured by a large prey animal.
CPW recently announced that the female and her four pups will be re-released in Colorado at about the same time the wolves from British Columbia are released.
Many ranchers are livid about that, Cooper said.
“What is the point of capturing the Copper Creek pack, that was killing cattle, and re-releasing them so that can do that same thing again?” said Cooper, whose family ranches in the Meeker area of northwest Colorado.
Here Come The Range Riders
Amid the ongoing trouble and controversy, CPW recently announced that it is partnering with the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CPA) to launch a range rider program in January 2025.
“Range riders are trained personnel with a specialized set of skills who spend time with livestock to monitor for the presence of wolves and deploy hazing techniques to deter wolves,” according to CPW.
The range riders will include CPW and CPA personnel, as well as hired contractors. There will be inaugural training in January, in time to put range riders to work during the livestock calving and lambing season, which typically starts in February.
Range riders will go out on horseback or on ATVs to monitor cattle and sheep herds.
There will be another round of range rider training in April, according to CPW, which has estimated the program could cost about $500,000 per year.
Krisztina Gayler has experience ranching in Europe and Colorado. She says range riding is effective in protecting livestock from wolves, but it’s brutally hard work. (Courtesy Krisztina Gayler) 
Krisztina Gayler has experience ranching in Europe and Colorado. She says range riding is effective in protecting livestock from wolves, but it’s brutally hard work. (Courtesy Krisztina Gayler)
‘It’s Not A Hobby Ride’
Range riding isn’t for the faint of heart, Gayler said, who grew up in a ranching family in Hungary and came to the U.S. to do ranch work in 2005.
Range riding is brutally hard work that requires around-the-clock dedication, regardless of weather, she said. And riders must know everything there is to know about sheep and cattle.
“The sound of the moos” can vary according to circumstances, she said.
Is a cow mooing because it’s trying to find its calf, frustrated or terrified by a predator? A range rider needs to be able to tell the difference, Gayler said.
“It’s a lot of work. They have to be on site all the time,” she said. “They have to know what they’re doing. They can be in the middle of nowhere. They’re going to have to have emergency kits.
“Working around cattle on horseback, it’s not a hobby ride.”
For those who are hardy enough to stick with it and “become one with the horse” the job can be immensely rewarding, said Gayler, who has retired from ranching and lives in Silver Gate, Montana.
“That was incredible. That was my favorite part of it,” she said.
Serious Doubts
Cooper said he has serious doubts that range riders would make any difference on his ranch.
One vital area of his property is huge meadow about 1.5 miles long bordering the 250,000-acre Flattop Wilderness.
The meadow is the ranch’s summer range for cattle, and it also draws an elk herd.
If wolves ever get in there, it would be pure chaos, Cooper said.
“Now you’re going to have cattle running around, and elk running around. Now you’ve got cattle running around everywhere in the national forest wilderness area,” he said.
And gathering up cows that scattered into the wilderness would be time-consuming and expensive, Cooper said. A range rider trying to haze the wolves away, but not allowed to kill them, might just make matters worse.
“He’s going to possibly cause a disruption, and disruption would mean cattle running through fences,” Cooper said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
