Colorado governor welcomes back wolverines

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has signed into law an effort to restore wolverines to the state.

The bipartisan bill requires that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designate the species as a nonessential experimental population in the state before it could be reintroduced. The wolverine was listed as threatened last year.

The wolverine (Gulo gulo) reintroduction comes on the heels of a voter-mandated effort to reintroduce gray wolves (Canis lupus) to Colorado. The first wolves were translocated into the mountains of Colorado last December.

The bill authorizes Colorado Parks and Wildlife to use $750,000 from the state’s Species Conservation Trust Fund for the reintroduction effort. The legislation would also allow landowners to be compensated for any losses of livestock caused by wolverines, although such conflicts are considered rare.

“This legislation represents a significant commitment to restoring a native species back to Colorado’s landscape,” said Colorado Department of Natural Resources Executive Director Dan Gibbs. “Colorado has some of the best remaining unoccupied habitat for wolverines and we have the opportunity to bolster the population significantly with a science-based restoration.”

Once native to Colorado, wolverines were extirpated from the state in the early 1900s due to unregulated hunting and poisoning. Fewer than 400 wolverines are believed to exist in the Lower 48 states.

Read more from Colorado Parks and Wildlife.