Financially Responsible

 

Colorado has an election coming up in November 2020. One of the issues on the ballot is the reintroduction of gray wolves. Wolves used to roam the lands of Colorado until they were hunted to extinction. This extinction was motivated by the livestock industry because wolves had a reputation for hunting livestock. In consideration for the reintroduction of the wolves, the proposed bill has a solution to deal with the conflict between livestock and predators.

Traditionally there has been a dilemma in dealing with the reintroduction of predators because they can cause financial damage to livestock owners. Wolves have been known to prey on livestock. Even with preventative measures in place, wolves still kill approximately 300 animals a year across 3 states that have adopted similar reintroductions of wolves. Historically, this has led to efforts that lead to the extinction of gray wolves within Colorado. In this case, there is a private property owner being damaged by a wolf with nobody being liable. With this dilemma, the incentive for property owners is to protect their investments or else face financial losses. But the catch is it's illegal to kill wolves for preventative purposes so that leaves ranchers out of money and with little resolutions. The issue here is the lack of liability for the damage of wolves to ranchers livestock and the rules stopping ranchers from protecting their livestock, to begin with. 

In recent times states have adapted to solve the issue of liability between wolves killing livestock. Colorado is following the approach of other states to pay livestock owners for deaths due to wolves. Here, wolves are treated as a private good where there is now financial ownership of the wolves from the government. The entity that will be in charge of compensation and management of the wolves is the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. The bill states the compensation for killed livestock will be fair. This resolution seeks to deal with the dilemma livestock owners face with wolves. This solution establishes liability by holding the government financially liable for Gray wolves. 

An issue with reintroducing Gray Wolves is the lack of liability for the damage caused by wolves. The bill aims to resolve the dilemma by changing the rules. Traditionally, it is illegal to kill wolves with exceptions so livestock owners are put in a losing situation. But, the bill holds a government agency financially liable for wolves which removes the losing situation livestock owners were initially in.