GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) – On August 21, Colorado lawmakers approved the reallocation of $264, 268 from the Division of Parks and Wildlife’s reintroduction of gray wolves towards the state’s Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise.
This decision came after some state senators and representatives introduced Senate Bill 25B-0010; a bill aimed at pausing gray wolf reintroduction to relocate funds towards improving the state’s current healthcare situation.
“We’re in between $750 million and $1.2 billion in deficit that we’re having to make up. We are having to look at all these programs to see where we can find some money to call back in to make sure that we’re providing healthcare to address our insurance crisis,” said State Rep. Matthew Martinez, for District 62.
Pausing the gray wolf reintroduction would have allowed farmers to get ahead of the depredations they face from wolves.
“I know that since more wolves have been introduced, we have seen more depredations, even though our ranchers are working incredibly hard to put up non-lethal deterrence measures. So, given non-lethal deterrence measures and the depredations that we are still seeing, I think that we need to pause the introducing of more wolves,” said State Rep. Meghan Lukens, District 26.
Representatives said this bill would have temporarily paused the gray wolf program, so funds being used to get new wolves for the 2025-26 fiscal year would have been redirected towards health insurance resources.
“This is not ending the program, this is a temporary pause due to budgetary constraints to making sure that we can make our ends meet in in the areas listed between Medicaid between health insurance for our citizens and SNAP benefits,” said Rep. Martinez.
For more information on the bill, click here.
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