Wolf center aims to educate public and break down ‘big bad wolf’ stereotype
DIVIDE, Colo. (KRDO) -- With the recent release of the endangered red wolf for the first time in Colorado history, the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center is working to educate the public about wolf behavior and break down the 'big bad wolf' stereotype.
"Having red wolves here is just going to spark that knowledge of these animals," Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center Assistant Director Erika Moore said. Red wolves are native to the United States and they don't live anywhere else in the world. So they are the American red wolf."
The Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center in Divide is working to educate the public and clear up common fears and misconceptions held about wolves through education.
"In the lower 48 states in the last 150 years there have been zero human deaths by wolves," Moore said. "So it's concerning but stems from not knowing what a wolf's natural behavior is. Wolves are very shy, cautious animals, and when it comes to wolves in the wild, they are going to know where you are to make sure you're not going to hurt them. But they don't want to get anywhere near you. A wolf's natural instinct is to flee from what they're afraid of or what they don't know."
The Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center takes guests through guided tours of the wolf enclosures while educating them about the animal's history and behavior. They even let some guests inside the enclosures interact with the ambassador wolves.
"We allow those up close and personal experiences with the wolves to cement that understanding that these guys are not big, bad, and scary," Moore said. "How can you hate an animal when it's giving you a sloppy kiss? Their calm nature helps people release that fear or anxiety of the animal."
Wolves are critical to a healthy ecosystem in controlling prey species population as well as balancing out the surrounding environment.
"Wolves' main prey species are gonna be hoofed animals, deer, and elk most commonly, and those animals when they don't have a predator chasing them become sedentary," Moore said. "But because they're grazers, they end up grazing everything to the ground, they pull out roots, stems, and you see what's called a trophic cascade. If you don't have roots holding the ground together, you get a lot more erosion, they remove roots from riverbanks and they can become flood plains or they dry up completely."
Wolves used to be native to Colorado before they were eradicated in the 1940s. Experts say nature has a way of balancing itself out and keeping populations under control without human interference.
"With wolves being reintroduced. What we see happening is that some of our overpopulated species come back down to a more sustainable level," Moore said. "Which will allow the ecosystem to regrow back to a healthy state. People come to Colorado for its wild places and how beautiful our outdoors are but don't realize there are things missing and there's damage that has been done without that balance in our ecosystems and having one of those key predators is going to make our state even more beautiful."
Regarding the wolf reintroduction plan in Colorado, Northern Colorado ranchers have recently spoken out about the depredation of their livestock. But, experts say those cases may have been prevented with education, tools, and resources.
"Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been putting a lot of time and effort into educating themselves on how to prevent depredations from happening with any current wolves in Colorado and with the wolves that are going to be reintroduced," Moore said. "They have spoken to other states that have wolves, spoken to experts who have spent a lot of years researching different depredation prevention methods, and they've tried some with the small pack of wolves currently in Colorado that has been here the last year or so. They have seen some success with those prevention methods."
Wolf advocates hope one day with education both people and wolves can coexist peacefully throughout North America, as they once were.
"Like with anything that you're scared of, knowing more about it helps take away that fear," Moore said. "Understanding what is going on but also knowing there are ways to prevent that from happening proven successful after years of studies. So that's part of what we hope to do here, helping people understand basic natural behaviors of wolves, what to do if you're in wolf country, what to do if you came across a wild wolf, but also give resources to communities like that to prevent those fears from coming true."
For more information on the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, visit their website.
