Colorado lawmakers announced legislation on Tuesday that would pause wolf reintroduction as they seek ways to address the state’s budget shortfall caused by congressional Republicans’ federal tax law. 

The bill — which proposes withholding $264,268 of the $2.1 million allocated in the 2025-26 budget for the wolf program — will be introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers during the special session starting on Thursday, Aug. 21. The bill also prohibits Colorado Parks and Wildlife from using the remaining dollars for acquiring or reintroducing wolves in the upcoming fiscal year. 

“This bill is the right thing to do given our state’s severe financial challenges that threaten the pocketbooks and health insurance costs of hardworking Coloradans,” said Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, in a news release. “Now is not the time to be spending precious taxpayer dollars on new wolves — let’s focus on lowering costs for Coloradans and balancing our budget.”

Roberts is introducing the bill alongside Sen. Marc Catlin, a Montrose Republican, and Reps. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat, and Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat. The bill has additional support from bipartisan lawmakers, according to the release.

The proposed $264,268 reduction accounts for approximately 0.033% of the $780 million deficit lawmakers will seek to close from the 2025-26 budget as they head back Thursday for the special session. The session was called to close the budget shortfall caused by the extension and expansion of corporate tax cuts passed in H.R. 1, previously designated as the “one, big beautiful bill.”  

Lawmakers will also seek to address a significant jump in health insurance premiums — up to 38% on the Western Slope — after Congress failed to extend subsidies created under the Biden administration.

“If you look at the call that the governor put out for the special session, it asked the legislature to consider all measures to add funding to the Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise and address our budget challenges,” Roberts said in an interview on Tuesday with the Vail Daily. 

Roberts added that with wolf costs escalating beyond what voters were promised in 2020, “it seems like a place where the state should take a pause in order to address real financial challenges facing Colorado and Colorado families.”

Parks and Wildlife officials have attributed the difference between the Blue Book estimation of $800,000 and the approximately $3.5 million spent last year on wolves to the fact that the initial 2020 number was an estimate that escalated as the state implemented the program and created its compensation program.  

Shortly after the bill was announced, however, it was criticized as having motives outside of saving money. 

“This backdoor effort to prevent the will of the voters to establish a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado from being implemented won’t save money; it just moves a small amount of money for wolf reintroduction to an unrelated issue without decreasing the deficit by one penny,” wrote a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis in an email, adding that it goes against the will of the voters and gray wolf management plan finalized in 2023. 

Roberts said that the bill would help the budget challenge in two ways. 

“First, for the families and individuals that this money will help, it will be the difference between them being able to purchase health insurance or not, it will be the difference between them being insured or uninsured — and the impacts of more uninsured Coloradans only compound our budget problems,” Roberts said.

“And two, more wolves have historically, over the course of this program, meant more taxpayer obligations. So every dollar we don’t spend to bring in a new wolf and instead deal with the wolves we do have, we will save money,” Roberts added.  

The proposal would redistribute this for one year to Colorado’s Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise, which aims to lower health insurance premiums through efforts including the state’s reinsurance program and OmniSalud. 

While it prohibits Colorado Parks and Wildlife from spending these funds on acquiring and reintroducing wolves in the upcoming fiscal year, the bill text states that the remaining appropriated funds can be used to prevent and resolve conflict between livestock and wolves and to compensate ranchers for their losses. 

Wolf and wildlife advocacy organizations echoed the sentiment of the governor’s office and also warned that a pause at this point would be problematic. 

Rob Edward, cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, which was formed to advocate for the restoration of gray wolves in their historic range, referred to the bill as “anti-democratic,” as it “risks killing this voter-mandated program in the cradle.” 

Colorado is two years into its wolf reintroduction, which was mandated by a ballot measure narrowly passed by voters in 2020. Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s wolf management plan recommends the release of 30 to 50 wolves over three to five years to create a self-sustaining population of wolves. So far, it has released a total of 25 wolves in the first two years of releases. Parks and Wildlife has reported that it has begun planning for a third release season this winter. 

Travis Duncan, public information officer for Parks and Wildlife, wrote in an email that “these releases are crucial to creating a strong, genetically diverse population base in line with the will of Colorado voters and are backed by science and the expertise of our veteran biologist at the agency.” 

“If we pause now, we lose the population density momentum that we’ve started to gain,” Edward said. “Even a single-year pause, any biologist would tell you, makes it harder to get to that goal of a self-sustaining population. And therefore, if we are setting ourselves back, we’re wasting taxpayer money that’s already been spent.”

Edward added that any loss of momentum in the program risks the program’s failure. 

“We need to get enough wolves on the ground now to make this succeed,” he said. 

The spokesperson for Polis added that the governor’s office is “open to continued dialogue with communities about Colorado’s wolf program that is consistent with efforts to meet the will of the voters, but right now we are focused on limiting the damage to Colorado done by President Trump and Congressional Republicans.” 

How much are wolves costing Colorado? 

The 2025-26 budget passed by Colorado lawmakers in April included $2.1 million allocated from the general fund to support the wolf program. The allocation came with a caveat in the form of a footnote, which threatened a pause in future general fund dollars should Parks and Wildlife spend money on future wolf reintroductions before more preventative measures were implemented to prevent conflict between wolves and livestock.  

“Since April, we have seen continued depredation and conflict by wolves in a lot in Pitkin County, but in other parts of the state too, and it seems to have only gotten worse over the course of the summer, and the costs are only continuing to go up,” said Roberts, who helped draft the budget footnote. “We need to take a hard look at every possible way we can save Colorado money.” 

State lawmakers created a separate gray wolf depredation fund in 2023 that provides a dedicated source to pay producers for the loss of livestock or working animals by wolves. In every year but the first year of reintroduction, the fund has received $350,000 from the state general fund. 

According to a July presentation before the Parks and Wildlife commission, the agency’s $3.5 million budget during the year came not only from the general fund and depredation fund allocations, but also included funds from the gray wolf license plate, federal funding and other grant dollars. This money was spent on many program elements, including rolling out increased site assessments and conflict specialist capabilities as well as range riders, educational workshops, improved conflict minimization efforts and more, Duncan said. 

Parks and Wildlife spent around $257,000 on the January capture and release operations in British Columbia, Duncan said. 

The amount the bill proposes to redirect is based on this number but adjusted for inflation, Roberts said. 

“​​Pressing pause on future releases gives the state the space to fix what isn’t working, fully fund landowner support, and carefully steward scarce dollars during a budget crunch,” Caitlin said in the news release. “That’s the responsible way to honor the will of the voters while recognizing the realities on the range. This bill doesn’t end reintroduction, it ensures CPW can repair its programs while we work to stabilize the state’s budget.”

Duncan said the transfer “does not help reduce the state’s deficit.”