Garfield County Commissioners Tom Jankovsky and Perry Will along with County Manager Fred Jarman have taken a stand against wolf reintroduction in a 33-minute film titled “Thrown to the Wolves,” released in 2026.
The film, produced by the American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), presents wolves as villains, capable of ruining livelihoods and rural economies and sending ranchers and landowners to the bread line. It is split into two parts — the commentary on wolf reintroduction in Colorado and why the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a failure. Interviews for the wolf part feature Lauren Dobson, of anti-wolf group United Wolf Coalition, Republican Congresswoman Harriet Hageman from Wyoming, Margaret Byfield, ASL executive director, and the Garfield County contingent.
ASL, headquartered in Texas, is a Bible-based, conservative property rights group with which Garfield County has been associated with for over a decade. The group promotes creation stewardship, warning against “creation idolatry.” They are skeptical of climate change. They also oppose the ESA, the America the Beautiful (30X30) initiative and conservation easements on private land, advocating for opening up federal lands to mining, energy development, grazing and timber sales.
According to Renelle Lott, Garfield County chief communications officer, the county is not a member of ASL and does not pay dues. But in 2015, High Country News reported that between 2012 and 2015 Garfield County paid more than $26,000 in taxpayer funds to ASL. Garfield County records show that in August 2023, the county awarded a $30,000 sole source contract as part of the Multi-Use Alliance, formed by ASL to challenge the 30X30 Rule. The contract states that ASL gets 10% for a management fee. The scope of services states that Garfield County is “one of the members of the Alliance”.
“Thrown to the Wolves” is not overtly religious; filmmaker David Medina leaves that out.
But, the Colorado wolf reintroduction program is portrayed as a non-starter — that relocating wolves from out-of-state has cost too much, livestock producers are holding the dirty end of the stick and CPW misled the public about where wolves would be released.
“A little more than a third of the entire state of Colorado was what the voters looked at in terms of a release zone, when in reality it was 2% of the state,” said Jarman in the film. “None of that analysis had been done, or at least presented to the voters, to say, ‘Hey, just so you understand, the entire state gets to vote on this issue. And by the way, we’re going to put this entire impact on the backs of one county.’”
Will echoes sentiments in the film about so-called “ballot box biology,” a buzzphrase that means wildlife decisions are better left to agency scientists than voters. “Letting the voters decide on wildlife issues in this state is the worst thing that you can do,” said Will, adding that because most of the “yes” votes came from the Front Range, “Prop 114” widened the state’s ideological divide. “East Slope directed; West Slope affected,” he said. “You couldn’t have driven a bigger wedge in the urban-rural divide than wolves.”
Will also says that Governor Jared Polis rushed the release of collared wolves into the state. But Eric Maruyama, spokesperson for the Governor’s office, said that’s not true.
“It is completely false with zero basis in fact that Governor Polis ‘rushed’ or even had the legal ability to modify any dates related to the reintroduction of wolves,” wrote Maruyama in a statement to The Sopris Sun. “The ballot measure language passed by voters specifically required that reintroduction begins no later than December 2023.”
Maruyama added that the governor did not support Proposition 114. “The reintroduction of Gray wolves was voted on by Coloradans, and despite not supporting the ballot initiative, Governor Polis is committed to implementing the will of the voters,” he wrote.
Polis is featured in photos and clips from newscasts. Other short clips sprinkled throughout the first part of the film feature wolf advocates and came from a documentary by the Endangered Species Coalition (ESC), praising wolf reintroduction, titled “Welcome Home.” The ESC told The Sopris Sun that the clips were used in Medina’s film without permission. Medina was unable to provide comment for this story.
The film suggests that Polis released wolves on private and state lands to avoid an environmental review required for federal lands projects by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). “Something of this nature, to me, deserves and demands that kind of environmental review, which is what NEPA is all about,” said Jarman. “[Polis] wanted to push it much more aggressively, and sort of NEPA be damned and here we are.”
CPW spokesperson Luke Perkins told The Sopris Sun in an email that CPW worked with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on a 10(j) rule, which changed the status of the collared wolves to allow management flexibility. The rule went into effect before the wolves were released.
“As the establishment/implementation of the 10j rule was a federal rule-making action led by the USFWS, it required an environmental impact statement (EIS). This EIS was prepared in accordance with NEPA,” he wrote. Perkins said the agency was not approached to participate in the film.
Mike Cerveny and Brad Day, who lease cattle from the Lost Marbles Ranch in Pitkin County and oversee haying operations there, spoke for the ranching industry. It is not apparent exactly where Cerveny and Day were filmed but the owners of Lost Marbles Ranch told The Sopris Sun that they were not aware of the film.
Cerveny and Day say that livestock producers are not reimbursed enough for animals killed by wolves. CPW’s Wolf Restoration and Recovery Plan offers fair market value up to $15,000 per animal and compensates ranchers for veterinary expenses related to wolf predation. Grand County ranchers who received over $400,000 in livestock predation reimbursements in 2024 and 2025, including indirect losses, did not appear in the film.
A bigger question that has not yet found an answer is why were Jankovsky, Will and Jarman chosen to be the only county officials in the film? The county is presented as a sort of epicenter of wolf problems because it was within the 2024 targeted release area. But even though wolves have traveled through, they have never been released directly into the county nor do CPW reports show confirmed wolf kills in the county.
The Sopris Sun reached out to county officials but did not get a response to that question. Will said that ASL approached the county and they were not paid to be in the film.