Advocating for healthy public lands and wildlife is at the heart of the Western Watersheds Project (WWP). The organization started in 1993, then the Idaho Watersheds Project, as a form of citizen protest to ranching practices in Lake Creek, Idaho. WWP’s work is done through a lens of maintaining and restoring ecosystem balance in places where humans and livestock overlap with wildlife.
Now 30 years into this work, WWP does much more than just compete at land-leasing auctions. With field offices in six states and addressing 250 million acres of public land, WWP is involved in initiatives from pollinator protection to wolf reintroduction, and from litigations and negotiations to public information campaigns.
Delaney Rudy is the Colorado director of WWP and a resident of Paonia. She gave The Sopris Sun insights on key projects within the state and the broader region.
“Our main goal as an organization is reducing ecologically irresponsible grazing on public land,” Rudy explained.
Wolf reintroduction
Just in the past month, WWP and allies in the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan have been working to address setbacks in the reintroduction process. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) captured and relocated the Copper Creek pack due to repeated conflicts with livestock in the Grand County area. CPW successfully captured the pack for relocation, but the father wolf died on Sept. 3, nearly 30% underweight with several infected injuries to his right hind leg unrelated to the capture.
Proposition 114 and Colorado’s wolf plan established guidance for ranchers and livestock owners and some funding for strategies associated with preventing depredation. However, some producers have not been receptive to the recommendations. A rancher in Grand County, for instance, applied for a permit to kill the wolves in response to depredation. That permit was denied given that open carcass disposal pits were on the property and for not implementing recommended nonlethal techniques.
“It is vital that producers utilize best-science recommendations from CPW for nonlethal conflict prevention,” said Rudy. A lack of compliance can cost state agencies and taxpayers funding, considering depredation compensation and relocation efforts.
WWP promotes the use of scientifically-based nonlethal coexistence techniques to prevent conflict between wolves and livestock. The organization is working to identify ways to make opponents of reintroduction feel heard, while also addressing misinformation and bias that can perpetuate conflicts.
According to studies, when livestock management guidance is followed, domestic stock is not the preferred prey for these wild predators, and wolves which aren’t habituated to livestock will hunt natural prey such as deer and elk — which can lead to ecosystem-wide improvements. Almost three decades of wolf repopulation in Yellowstone Park demonstrates the potential benefit.
Western Slope
On the Western Slope, WWP is paying particularly close attention to a few indicator species: Gunnison sage grouse, bighorn sheep and rare high-altitude plant life and pollinators. This part of the state has many delicate ecosystems, and, accordingly, land health has been degraded in large part due to livestock management malpractices.
Cattle can compromise riparian ecosystems due to soil compaction, which can impede on underground springs and risk native bunch grasses. Sheep may overgraze sagebrush and other native flora. This can stress pollinators, limit sage grouse food sources and, in recent years, has been connected with a high rate of disease transfer to wildlife.
Bighorn herds from the San Juan Mountains north to Vail have been in crisis due to Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae and Mannheimia haemolycta pathogen transmissions from domestic sheep herds. While endemic in domestic sheep, the mycoplasma is newer to bighorns and consequently has much higher fatality rates. WWP is working to track the scope of these impacts and inform people in affected areas.
Takeaways
“Broadly, shifting perceptual baselines is challenging for ecosystem advocacy,” Rudy explained. Most of the West has undergone livestock grazing for more than a century. Folks are used to seeing their public lands in this condition, without reference to how balanced, thriving ecosystems might look. This is exacerbated by years of drought and associated shifting expectations.
WWP is working on a grassroots information campaign to teach people to recognize signs of ecosystem damage. If people can understand what healthy, thriving ecosystems can look like in the areas where they live, Rudy and colleagues believe they’ll be more motivated to engage in efforts toward conservation.
To protect public lands, it’s crucial to show up and advocate at every step, from public comment opportunities all the way to the courthouse, said Rudy. Informed action and advocacy, in the organization’s experience, can make a world of difference.