Daniel Curry named his organization, Project GRIPH, after his horse. “Griph is the first horse I rescued from slaughter,” said Curry. “He would have been dog food in 2009. Now he’s started this business with me and he’s been there with me the whole time.” GRIPH also stands for Guarding the Respective Interests of Predators & Humans.
Curry is a range rider in eastern Washington, helping ranchers and wolves live alongside each other. He doesn’t like the term “co-existence.” “I prefer to use ‘co-thriving,’” he told The Sopris Sun. “I think co-existence is a very subpar way to live. We’re just barely existing with each other on the planet.”
Curry will be at the Third Street Center on Thursday, Nov. 21 for an event sponsored by Colorado Wild, a local nonprofit.
Animals have been a large part of Curry’s life from a young age. And he’s worked with wolves for 22 years. But, the range riding thing happened in his 30s when an article in Spokane’s Spokesman-Review changed his life. “A rancher lost cows. The wolves lost their lives for eating those cows,” he recalled. “And as taxpayers, we paid an exorbitant amount of money for lethal removal of that pack.”
He was working at a wolf sanctuary at the time. “I was really passionate about wolves,” said Curry. “I really value animals and their contribution to this planet, whether it’s seen or not.” Upset about wolves suffering at the hands of a state agency, he moved to northeast Washington to try to improve the situation.
He heard about range riding from a Canadian newspaper. “I thought I could utilize my wolf behavior knowledge, my skills with wolves and, coupled with my knowledge of horseback riding and cattle behavior, offer some kind of service to the community, both wildlife and the people of Washington state,” he explained.
That was 12 years ago.
Now, he’s busy building Project GRIPH chapters across the American West, and fielding calls from Finland and France. But his focus remains in Washington. “I’ve gone to speak to the communities of these areas, ranchers primarily, and some state agency personnel,” he said. “They’re all experiencing the same problems of trying to figure out a way forward.”
Those problems include ranchers with dug-in beliefs about wolves and a refusal to make systemic changes as well as wildlife advocates who see wolf protection as a fight. “A lot of people I talk to, especially in the wolf advocacy world or in the ranching communities, look at this as, well, I’m going to have my side, join my side and we’re going to win this,” he said. “I’m not trying to win a fight. I’m trying to stop the war.” The way Curry sees it, if there’s no war, there is no fight.
He told The Sopris Sun that many of the difficulties faced by humans come from a human-centric point of view that separates us from the natural world. “We’re not accounting for those little unseen connections between animals and people, between animals and animals, and people and the landscape,” he said. So, how does he get his point across to those who believe a wolf is satanic or the only good wolf is a dead wolf?
It takes time in the field and patience with people. When a rancher is receptive to his work, this is the time to listen to their concerns and go out on the land with them. “You don’t work the landscape away from them like a lot of state agencies do,” he said. “You’re out there on the landscape with them.”
Curry spends weeks in Washington’s backcountry — in fine weather and foul — with only his trusted horse, following the herd and making sure he remains a buffer between cow and wolf… and wolf and rancher. His efforts have paid off in partnerships with some of Washington’s livestock growers.
As for Colorado’s gray wolf reintroduction efforts, that’s sort of why he’s here. He said learning to live with the natural world is paramount but ballot box biology is not necessarily the way to move forward. On one hand, 10 wolves were released in a state with the largest ungulate population in the country. “But we also dumped them right onto cattle operations that haven’t had wolves on the landscape since the 1930s, and we’re not seeing a lot of positive assistance to deal with this,” he said.
He added that non-lethal control strategies should have been in place before wolves were released. “Right now it’s like trying to get ahead of a ball that’s rolling downhill,” he said. “I hope that [Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the state Department of Agriculture] will take advantage of organizations like my own and others that have the same mindset.”
Curry will field questions Thursday night at the Third Street Center after a screening of “Range Rider,” a film about his work. The event starts at 6pm.