Flirting with Disaster

As a Michigan native I'm partial to wolverines, even if they haven't won a Rose Bowl in too many years. But I still believe Colorado would be crazy to welcome reintroduction of the animals into the state, given the headaches we face with current listings and the obvious dysfunctionality of the Endangered Species Act. Until the law is fixed, we shouldn't invite any more trouble, no matter how cute and fuzzy-faced the creature may be.

We already have major problems with the Preble's meadow jumping mouse, as most locals know, and those problems just multiplied with the decision by the feds to expand "critical habitat" for a subspecies of questionable scientific validity. We're only now beginning to feel the impacts of Canada lynx reintroduction, even though we were promised, when the effort began, that Colorado would be spared the regulatory hammer if it went along with the experiment. That, we now know, was a bait and switch.

And it's only a matter of time before a significant number of federally-reintroduced wolves wander into the state, dragging Colorado into the political and legal quagmire faced by Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, as they try to manage the animals and force a de-listing through the courts. The wolf fight has demonstrated beyond a doubt that ESA is broken. And that problem will become Colorado's problem in not-too-many years.

No, no, hell no. Coloradans should vigorously oppose any effort to import wolverines into the state -- unless they come wearing maize and blue, with those hideously cool helmets, to open up a can of Big Ten-style whoopass on the hapless CU Buffs.