Name: The Dangers of Reintroducing Wolves to Colorado
Uploaded: 2023-03-15T20:16:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Dangers of Reintroducing Wolves to Colorado' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Dangers of Reintroducing Wolves to Colorado' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-15. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- Wolves are dominant, intelligent,
calculating predators that they eradicated
from the West for a reason.
- Yeah.
Yeah, man, so I think you hit on a bunch of things
that would bring me back to my opinion on it,
and that's that a lot of this stuff when,
so I know they've basically described
two different areas in Colorado
where they're gonna put the two,
or the two first sets of transplants,
and one of 'em is like right in where you're not,
I mean, I rode that country with a horse
like all over the place,
and the circle of where they're gonna put those wolves
is right there, so I know where they're gonna put those,
you know, one of the spots.
I know the spot intimately,
I know the wildlife there intimately.
- How many wolves are they gonna put in?
- So my understanding is off the bat,
the first year, and I believe their goal
is by December of this year,
it's gonna be like between 15 and 30,
I believe is the first bunch,
and they're gonna have 'em in two different spots.
But in that, you know, in that veil corridor,
you know, up to the flat tops in there,
you know, so they're probably gonna put 15 to 20 wolves in there.
The thing that you hit on, Joe,
that I think kind of forms my opinion is,
I mean, these areas, when you go in 'em in,
they seem so wild, right?
Like, you know, I could, the flat tops,
I could get on a horse and I could ride for 15 hours
and not see a road, you know?
10 hours and not see a road.
And they seem so wild, even to me, being there.
But I don't think that people realize
how much humans have already affected that landscape,
and how, it doesn't matter, like,
this myth that putting wolves back in that landscape
is going to turn it back to some ecosystem
that was here, you know, 300 years ago.
I think it's a figment of their imagination, man.
And the reason I say that is because
I've also spent a fair amount of time in British Columbia
that seemed so much more wild to me.
And let me kind of, like, give you context of why that is.
You know, have you ever been to Vail?
- Colorado. - Colorado?
- No. - Yeah, okay.
- Oh, I have, but not outside.
- Okay, so, like, if you look at the dynamic of that area,
there's a huge highway that goes from Highway 70
that goes from Denver on the front range up,
you know, past all the ski resorts into Vail, into Eagle,
and then it kind of goes down through a big canyon,
Glenwood Canyon, and then kicks back into Aspen.
All the winter range there is split by this massive highway,
and then that highway has an eight-foot game fence
along the whole thing, and then, you know,
along that Vail Valley where they're wanting to put these,
or where they are going to put these wolves, you know,
there's, you know, 50,000 full-time residents,
and, you know, there's probably double that
in the high season, ski season, and stuff.
Plus, you've got these huge ski resorts.
I guess what I'm getting at is when somebody tells me
that the low-hanging fruit to kind of rewild that area
versus wolves, it's just bullshit, you know what I mean?
How is it getting passed, though?
Well, it got passed by a ballot initiative, you know,
that the ballot initiative is how wolves got, you know,
got to the situation they are now, and basically what
the ballot initiative did is it forced the CPW to take on
this goal of transplanting the wolves.
So, it wasn't the CPW's choice, and they, you know,
there's a, I don't know the exact laws, Joe,
but the CPW, and that's the Colorado Parks and Wildlife,
they're in charge of managing the wildlife in Colorado.
How can they put something like the transplanting of wolves,
a very complex biological problem?
I mean, it's, you're dealing with biology and wildlife.
How can they put that as a ballot initiative?
Like, how can they put that in the hands of people other
than wildlife conservation experts, wildlife biologists?
Well, I mean, the reality is our laws allow that,
you know what I mean?
It doesn't make rational sense, you know?
But it's a decision that, for people that are just like,
yeah, that'd be amazing, let's put the wolves out there.
Like, people are gonna lose their dogs.
Like, you're gonna, your dogs are gonna get eaten.
Like, it's going to affect anyone who has livestock.
You're gonna have a problem.
Whether that problem's in three years or in five years,
those problems are coming.
Dogs are 100% gonna get eaten.
If you have a cute golden retriever like mine,
you leave them outside, like, guess what?
That dog's dead.
Sure.
They're gonna team up on that dog and tear it apart.
Yeah.
And if you're cool with going outside and seeing wolves
eat your dog, like, well, then you've made the right choice.
But if you're not, like, if you don't think they're gonna go
after low-hanging fruit, if you don't, you don't think they're
gonna go after easy prey, you don't understand wolves.
Talk to people that live in Alaska.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, you know, anybody who lives in, like, British Columbia,
like, they have real fucking wolf problems up there.
Right.
And these are wolf problems that we used to have in the West,
but they eradicated them.
Right.
I mean, I don't think it's good to eradicate them.
I'm not saying that what they did was right when they poisoned horses and left
dead horses
filled with strychnine and, you know, and the wolves all died off.
But they did it for a fucking reason.
Yeah, yeah, well, and that's the thing that's so crazy about, you know,
back to the process of how it happened, everybody who wants wolves in Colorado,
and we can get into, you know, the depth they want them.
Because that's not really clear.
You know, they just went through this whole, you know, setting up the plan for
the CPW.
And it became very clear in my mind, watching that process, that they don't
really want there
to be any, you know, management of wolves in Colorado either.
It's going to be-
No.
Yeah.
So basically-
Well, that's crazy.
Yeah.
And so that, I think, you know, anybody rational is going to be like, look,
like, we got to
have like a top to the population, you know-
There's no management at all?
Well, so here's the deal, is they're not- they have a draft plan, you know, for-
to manage
the wolves.
What happened is when the CPW did that draft plan, it included some discussion
of wolves
being lethally managed at all different stages, you know what I mean, Joe?
Like, even now, if they, you know, a real problem with livestock, you know,
could they be lethally
managed, but down the road, once they had, once they had hit certain population
objectives,
could they be hunted, right?
Like, that was discussed.
Well, it turns out the ballot initiative basically says that wolves are a non-game
species, and
that was in the language of the ballot initiative.
So they can't really, they can't really now say, the CPW can't really say that
they're going
to someday be a hunted species in Colorado.
I personally think, and I, you know, everything's like 20-20 hindsight, but
even when the ballot
initiative originally, you know, was out there, and I always thought it was
going to pass by
a landslide, that's what's so crazy, because it just barely passed, but I
always thought,
like, the problem with Colorado is it's different than these other western
states, you know, Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming, because they're going to, they're going to keep the
population in line through
hunting or other, you know, other methods, but in Colorado, I don't think the
politics are
going to allow that, man.
I think it's just going to be, like, who knows what the top is on, you know,
how many there
is, how much they affect the ungulate population, you know, who knows, you know.
But what I was going to say is what's crazy about this ballot initiative, and
the bummer part
about it is everybody that's going to deal with the negative consequences, they're
people that voted
no in, but they're in the areas where the wolves are going to be transplanted.
Everybody that voted
for it, they don't have to deal with the downside.
They're living in Boulder.
Yeah, dude, and I'm like you, man. They're cool. Like, I've been around them in
Canada.
They're way cool. But the problem is, is every person that I've interacted with
in British Columbia,
you know, or even in the Western states that have a fair amount of wolves,
every person is just trying
to make a living on the landscape. You know, he's a guide, an outfitter, a logger,
a cattle rancher,
whatever. Like, he's out there living, he or she's out there living with them
and dealing with them.
They're all just like, when you ask about wolves, they're like, it's just like,
you know what I mean?
Because they got to deal with the negative consequences all the time.
They're a totally different kind of animal than any other animal, because they
act as a pack.
Right.
And they have some sort of intelligent communication.
They're badass, man.
They're amazing.
Yeah.
They're cunning and crafty, and they're efficient, ruthless killers.
And they also surplus kill, you know?
Sure.
They find them, like, I think it was Wyoming recently, but they found just like,
fucking giant pile of elk that they had trapped in high snow and just tore to
pieces.
Yeah, yeah.
And I don't know, like, the stats on how common that is, but, you know, other
predators do that, too.
Yeah, cats do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's, you know, bears.
The difference between them is that they act as a group.
Yeah, yeah.
They're the only one of those predators that acts as a large group.
Yeah.
No, and they, and they're, they're effective.
I mean, they're, they're effective.
I mean, even when you talk to, I know, I know a guy in British Columbia that's,
I mean, his
whole world's, his whole world is focused on trapping them.
And I've sat and talked to him just about, like, the details, you know, of,
like, boiling
his snares, you know, how he goes in and puts his snares in, you know, how he
goes in
and checks them, like, all that matter.
Boiling his snares to leave no scent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they just pick up on that, that stuff, you know, they're, they're just
so smart.
It's.
And they know that they're being fucked with too.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, it's funny because the first thing you said is they're a dog
and that, I
mean, you, you have dogs, you know how it is?
Like, they can't figure it out.
Yeah, they, they know things.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, I talk to my dog, like, he understands certain things.
Right.
I'm like, come on, dude, let's go outside.
Yeah.
And he just starts going towards the door.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, he knows what that means.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
You know, I can, I don't have to say it like, want to go outside?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you want to go outside?
I can just say, hey, come on, man, let's go outside.
Yeah.
And he's like, oh yeah, let's go outside.
Yeah.
Are you hungry?
And he's like, fuck yeah, I'm hungry.
I'm like, okay, let's eat.
He knows some aspects of language.
Sure.
And you know, what he is, is like a really tame, docile version of a wolf.
Yeah.
A wolf is like a, like, have you ever been around a Belgian Malinois?
Yeah, I, I don't think I'm sure.
Those are the dogs that they use in war.
Yeah, okay.
And police dogs.
Okay.
And they are fucking scary little meat missiles.
I gotcha.
And they look at you like this.
Yeah.
They're always thinking.
And you can't just keep one of those motherfuckers in your yard.
They're too smart.
They're working dogs.
First of all, they climb fences.
Yeah.
Like a chimpanzee.
They just go right up the fence and over it.
I mean, have you ever seen like videos of Belgian Malinois working?
I don't think I have, Joe.
Dude.
I'm trying to put.
It's wild.
Okay.
They can do shit where they leap through the air.
Like you can't fucking believe they really can jump that high.
Right.
Like soaring through the air.
I'm talking like 12 feet in the air.
Sure.
They run, jump off a guy's back and then leap through the air.
Like climb over walls that are like 10 feet tall just by running up the wall.
Yeah.
It's insane.
It's pretty wild.
That's a wolf.
It's the same thing.
Yeah.
This is a Belgian Malinois.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I've seen a man.
Look at this.
I mean, that's insane.
It is nuts.
How's that dog doing that?
Look at him running up the fucking wall.
I mean, he's basically a monkey.
Got it figured out.
Look, he's running up a fucking tree to get to a mitt and then he's hanging on
it.
It's crazy.
Man, you know, the diversity amongst dogs is wild.
It is wild.
But these dogs in particular are bred and look how smart they are.
Look, you can walk across a tightrope.
Look at that.
Isn't that insane?
I mean, that's fucking insane.
They're so intelligent.
But that's closer to a wolf.
Yeah, yeah.
Way closer to a wolf.
Look at his ears.
I mean, they're basically an athlete wolf.
Yeah.
You know?
Have you ever seen these Great Pyrenees dogs that they run with the sheep?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, they're cool in a much different way.
Yeah.
But they basically think they're sheep.
Yeah.
You know?
Pull up Great Pyrenees dogs.
Yeah, they're interesting.
It's so wild that they all came from wolves and that you have so many different...
styles of, like, the way they look.
Dude, these dogs...
So there's big, big domestic sheep permits where I used to outfit.
So guys running, you know, big bands of sheep periodically in the wilderness
areas and they keep these dogs with them.
And these dogs are something else to run into, you know, in the night up in the
mountains or whatever.
And they're just, you know, they just protect those sheep.
Just, you know, you see these big bands of sheep like this and...
And do they keep wolves off of them?
Yeah.
So I've heard mixed things.
And this will be interesting because right where they're going to put some of
these wolves in Colorado,
there's some pretty big domestic sheep guys that run these Pyrenees dogs.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
And they actually...
So sheep in the wilderness are one of the few animals that are still guarded by
humans.
You know, they usually have a herder with them.
Yeah.
And a lot of them are guys from...
Nowadays, it seems to be that most of them are from Peru, I believe.
And I used to run into the guys because they've been out there living with
these sheep, man, for, like, weeks at a time.
So even though there's a language barrier, like, when they see you up there,
like, they want to hang out, you know, say hi or whatever.
Just happy to see people.
Yeah.
They'll have, like, they'll have a horse with them, you know, maybe, I don't
know, probably 500, 600 sheep, and they'll have a couple of those dogs.
Wow.
You know, but back to your original question is I've heard mixed things about
these dogs' ability to deal with wolves, you know,
and it has to do with the fact that there's more than, you know, there's a
group of wolves.
So if they can draw one of these dogs off, you know, wolves can kill them.

The Dangers of Reintroducing Wolves to Colorado

- The Joe Rogan Experience.
- Wolves are dominant, intelligent,
calculating predators that they eradicated
from the West for a reason.
- Yeah.
Yeah, man, so I think you hit on a bunch of things
that would bring me back to my opinion on it,
and that's that a lot of this stuff when,
so I know they've basically described
two different areas in Colorado
where they're gonna put the two,
or the two first sets of transplants,
and one of 'em is like right in where you're not,
I mean, I rode that country with a horse
like all over the place,
and the circle of where they're gonna put those wolves
is right there, so I know where they're gonna put those,
you know, one of the spots.
I know the spot intimately,
I know the wildlife there intimately.
- How many wolves are they gonna put in?
- So my understanding is off the bat,
the first year, and I believe their goal
is by December of this year,
it's gonna be like between 15 and 30,
I believe is the first bunch,
and they're gonna have 'em in two different spots.
But in that, you know, in that veil corridor,
you know, up to the flat tops in there,
you know, so they're probably gonna put 15 to 20 wolves in there.
The thing that you hit on, Joe,
that I think kind of forms my opinion is,
I mean, these areas, when you go in 'em in,
they seem so wild, right?
Like, you know, I could, the flat tops,
I could get on a horse and I could ride for 15 hours
and not see a road, you know?
10 hours and not see a road.
And they seem so wild, even to me, being there.
But I don't think that people realize
how much humans have already affected that landscape,
and how, it doesn't matter, like,
this myth that putting wolves back in that landscape
is going to turn it back to some ecosystem
that was here, you know, 300 years ago.
I think it's a figment of their imagination, man.
And the reason I say that is because
I've also spent a fair amount of time in British Columbia
that seemed so much more wild to me.
And let me kind of, like, give you context of why that is.
You know, have you ever been to Vail?
- Colorado. - Colorado?
- No. - Yeah, okay.
- Oh, I have, but not outside.
- Okay, so, like, if you look at the dynamic of that area,
there's a huge highway that goes from Highway 70
that goes from Denver on the front range up,
you know, past all the ski resorts into Vail, into Eagle,
and then it kind of goes down through a big canyon,
Glenwood Canyon, and then kicks back into Aspen.
All the winter range there is split by this massive highway,
and then that highway has an eight-foot game fence
along the whole thing, and then, you know,
along that Vail Valley where they're wanting to put these,
or where they are going to put these wolves, you know,
there's, you know, 50,000 full-time residents,
and, you know, there's probably double that
in the high season, ski season, and stuff.
Plus, you've got these huge ski resorts.
I guess what I'm getting at is when somebody tells me
that the low-hanging fruit to kind of rewild that area
versus wolves, it's just bullshit, you know what I mean?
How is it getting passed, though?
Well, it got passed by a ballot initiative, you know,
that the ballot initiative is how wolves got, you know,
got to the situation they are now, and basically what
the ballot initiative did is it forced the CPW to take on
this goal of transplanting the wolves.
So, it wasn't the CPW's choice, and they, you know,
there's a, I don't know the exact laws, Joe,
but the CPW, and that's the Colorado Parks and Wildlife,
they're in charge of managing the wildlife in Colorado.
How can they put something like the transplanting of wolves,
a very complex biological problem?
I mean, it's, you're dealing with biology and wildlife.
How can they put that as a ballot initiative?
Like, how can they put that in the hands of people other
than wildlife conservation experts, wildlife biologists?
Well, I mean, the reality is our laws allow that,
you know what I mean?
It doesn't make rational sense, you know?
But it's a decision that, for people that are just like,
yeah, that'd be amazing, let's put the wolves out there.
Like, people are gonna lose their dogs.
Like, you're gonna, your dogs are gonna get eaten.
Like, it's going to affect anyone who has livestock.
You're gonna have a problem.
Whether that problem's in three years or in five years,
those problems are coming.
Dogs are 100% gonna get eaten.
If you have a cute golden retriever like mine,
you leave them outside, like, guess what?
That dog's dead.
Sure.
They're gonna team up on that dog and tear it apart.
Yeah.
And if you're cool with going outside and seeing wolves
eat your dog, like, well, then you've made the right choice.
But if you're not, like, if you don't think they're gonna go
after low-hanging fruit, if you don't, you don't think they're
gonna go after easy prey, you don't understand wolves.
Talk to people that live in Alaska.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, you know, anybody who lives in, like, British Columbia,
like, they have real fucking wolf problems up there.
Right.
And these are wolf problems that we used to have in the West,
but they eradicated them.
Right.
I mean, I don't think it's good to eradicate them.
I'm not saying that what they did was right when they poisoned horses and left
dead horses
filled with strychnine and, you know, and the wolves all died off.
But they did it for a fucking reason.
Yeah, yeah, well, and that's the thing that's so crazy about, you know,
back to the process of how it happened, everybody who wants wolves in Colorado,
and we can get into, you know, the depth they want them.
Because that's not really clear.
You know, they just went through this whole, you know, setting up the plan for
the CPW.
And it became very clear in my mind, watching that process, that they don't
really want there
to be any, you know, management of wolves in Colorado either.
It's going to be-
No.
Yeah.
So basically-
Well, that's crazy.
Yeah.
And so that, I think, you know, anybody rational is going to be like, look,
like, we got to
have like a top to the population, you know-
There's no management at all?
Well, so here's the deal, is they're not- they have a draft plan, you know, for-
to manage
the wolves.
What happened is when the CPW did that draft plan, it included some discussion
of wolves
being lethally managed at all different stages, you know what I mean, Joe?
Like, even now, if they, you know, a real problem with livestock, you know,
could they be lethally
managed, but down the road, once they had, once they had hit certain population
objectives,
could they be hunted, right?
Like, that was discussed.
Well, it turns out the ballot initiative basically says that wolves are a non-game
species, and
that was in the language of the ballot initiative.
So they can't really, they can't really now say, the CPW can't really say that
they're going
to someday be a hunted species in Colorado.
I personally think, and I, you know, everything's like 20-20 hindsight, but
even when the ballot
initiative originally, you know, was out there, and I always thought it was
going to pass by
a landslide, that's what's so crazy, because it just barely passed, but I
always thought,
like, the problem with Colorado is it's different than these other western
states, you know, Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming, because they're going to, they're going to keep the
population in line through
hunting or other, you know, other methods, but in Colorado, I don't think the
politics are
going to allow that, man.
I think it's just going to be, like, who knows what the top is on, you know,
how many there
is, how much they affect the ungulate population, you know, who knows, you know.
But what I was going to say is what's crazy about this ballot initiative, and
the bummer part
about it is everybody that's going to deal with the negative consequences, they're
people that voted
no in, but they're in the areas where the wolves are going to be transplanted.
Everybody that voted
for it, they don't have to deal with the downside.
They're living in Boulder.
Yeah, dude, and I'm like you, man. They're cool. Like, I've been around them in
Canada.
They're way cool. But the problem is, is every person that I've interacted with
in British Columbia,
you know, or even in the Western states that have a fair amount of wolves,
every person is just trying
to make a living on the landscape. You know, he's a guide, an outfitter, a logger,
a cattle rancher,
whatever. Like, he's out there living, he or she's out there living with them
and dealing with them.
They're all just like, when you ask about wolves, they're like, it's just like,
you know what I mean?
Because they got to deal with the negative consequences all the time.
They're a totally different kind of animal than any other animal, because they
act as a pack.
Right.
And they have some sort of intelligent communication.
They're badass, man.
They're amazing.
Yeah.
They're cunning and crafty, and they're efficient, ruthless killers.
And they also surplus kill, you know?
Sure.
They find them, like, I think it was Wyoming recently, but they found just like,
fucking giant pile of elk that they had trapped in high snow and just tore to
pieces.
Yeah, yeah.
And I don't know, like, the stats on how common that is, but, you know, other
predators do that, too.
Yeah, cats do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's, you know, bears.
The difference between them is that they act as a group.
Yeah, yeah.
They're the only one of those predators that acts as a large group.
Yeah.
No, and they, and they're, they're effective.
I mean, they're, they're effective.
I mean, even when you talk to, I know, I know a guy in British Columbia that's,
I mean, his
whole world's, his whole world is focused on trapping them.
And I've sat and talked to him just about, like, the details, you know, of,
like, boiling
his snares, you know, how he goes in and puts his snares in, you know, how he
goes in
and checks them, like, all that matter.
Boiling his snares to leave no scent.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they just pick up on that, that stuff, you know, they're, they're just
so smart.
It's.
And they know that they're being fucked with too.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, it's funny because the first thing you said is they're a dog
and that, I
mean, you, you have dogs, you know how it is?
Like, they can't figure it out.
Yeah, they, they know things.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean, I talk to my dog, like, he understands certain things.
Right.
I'm like, come on, dude, let's go outside.
Yeah.
And he just starts going towards the door.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, he knows what that means.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
You know, I can, I don't have to say it like, want to go outside?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you want to go outside?
I can just say, hey, come on, man, let's go outside.
Yeah.
And he's like, oh yeah, let's go outside.
Yeah.
Are you hungry?
And he's like, fuck yeah, I'm hungry.
I'm like, okay, let's eat.
He knows some aspects of language.
Sure.
And you know, what he is, is like a really tame, docile version of a wolf.
Yeah.
A wolf is like a, like, have you ever been around a Belgian Malinois?
Yeah, I, I don't think I'm sure.
Those are the dogs that they use in war.
Yeah, okay.
And police dogs.
Okay.
And they are fucking scary little meat missiles.
I gotcha.
And they look at you like this.
Yeah.
They're always thinking.
And you can't just keep one of those motherfuckers in your yard.
They're too smart.
They're working dogs.
First of all, they climb fences.
Yeah.
Like a chimpanzee.
They just go right up the fence and over it.
I mean, have you ever seen like videos of Belgian Malinois working?
I don't think I have, Joe.
Dude.
I'm trying to put.
It's wild.
Okay.
They can do shit where they leap through the air.
Like you can't fucking believe they really can jump that high.
Right.
Like soaring through the air.
I'm talking like 12 feet in the air.
Sure.
They run, jump off a guy's back and then leap through the air.
Like climb over walls that are like 10 feet tall jus