A federal judge in Denver denied an 11th-hour lawsuit to delay Colorado’s wolf reintroduction by livestock groups Friday evening as state wildlife officials assembled to capture wolves in Oregon and bring the first wolves back to the state.

Judge Regina M. Rodriguez ruled in favor of wildlife conservation groups in allowing the reintroduction effort to continue. The hearing started Thursday and a decision was expected then but Rodriguez needed additional time to render her decision.

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association on Monday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife in an effort to delay reintroduction based on a claim that the agencies failed to properly conduct environmental impact reviews regarding reintroduction resulting in “significant costs on the industry.”

Rodriguez wrote she recognized the rancher groups’ concerns regarding impacts but that their claims did not validate halting the reintroduction. That process has been in the making since voters in 2020 narrowly passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce wolves by the end of this year west of the Continental Divide.

That vote was decided on a sharp divide between urban and rural areas of the state.

The judge wrote environmental policies were conducted properly and that claims of livestock losses were “speculative.”

“The court finds that, while the Petitioners who have lived and worked on the land for many years are understandably concerned about possible impacts of this reintroduction, neither these possible impacts nor their assertions under the Administrative Procedures Act are sufficient for this Court to grant the extraordinary relief they seek,” Rodriguez wrote.

Wildlife conservation groups applauded the judge’s decision.

“We are thrilled that Colorado’s state-led wolf reintroduction program will continue to move forward despite these last-minute, flimsy attempts to sabotage this historic effort,” Michael Saul, Rockies and Plains Program Director at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a news release. “We will have paws on the ground this winter and that is something we can all applaud.”

Delaney Rudy of Western Watersheds Project said in a news release the groups are looking forward to the return of wolves to Colorado.

“The agencies went through the full and proper process, and while none of us are 100 percent happy with the management plans for wolves in Colorado, trying to thwart the will of the voters with this last-minute maneuver was poor form,” he said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is in the process of capturing as many as 10 wolves in northeast Oregon to serve as initial release animals into Grand, Summit and Eagle counties. Under the state’s wolf recovery plan, the state’s goal is to reintroduce up to 50 wolves over the next several years in hopes of reestablishing a sustainable population.

Ruling comes days after Colorado granted permission to kill wolves in certain situations

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 10(j) rule under the Endangered Species Act went into effect in Colorado Dec. 8.

That rule designates gray wolves in Colorado as experimental and provides state officials and livestock producers more management flexibility of the animals, including killing wolves in situations where the predator is caught in the act of killing livestock or where chronic depredation is occurring.

Wolves also can be killed if threatening human life.

Colorado paid the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service $1 million to complete the environmental impact statement required under the National Environmental Policy Act. That process usually takes two to three years but was accomplished in a little over a year-and-a-half so the rule would be in effect prior to wolves being reintroduced.

The federal 10(j) rule accompanied wolf reintroductions in Yellowstone National Park and Idaho in the mid-1990s, and litigation accompanied the rule implementation. In that case, the ruling judge allowed for the reintroduction to continue while the legal process played out.

Colorado has paid nearly $40,000 in loss of livestock compensation due to wolves

Two wolves that naturally migrated from Wyoming into Colorado gave birth to the first wolf pups in Colorado in 80 years in spring of 2021 in Jackson County.

The North Park pack included the two parents and six pups. Several of the pups were legally shot in Wyoming and it is believed the breeding female is dead.

At present, Colorado Parks and Wildlife only recognizes two wolves in the state, the pack’s breeding male and one offspring. Both of those wolves are collared, allowing wildlife officials to track their movements. Jackson County ranchers claim they have seen more wolves than the two collared ones.

Over the past two years, pack members have been confirmed to have killed 20 livestock, including 14 cattle, three sheep and three working cattle dogs over the last two years, the latest incident reported Dec. 13.

Before the latest incident, Colorado had compensated livestock producers around $40,000.

Other claims have been denied due to insufficient evidence.

As of Dec. 8, wildlife officials have more management options to determine if it wishes to act on mitigation efforts, nonlethal or lethal, involving the North Park pack.