While the wolves themselves cost nothing, the planes to surveil them, the crates to transport them and the creation of the plan to manage them were not free. Those are some of the expenses incurred by Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program, which has cost $4.8 million since voters in 2020 mandated the return of the apex predator to the state, according to a spreadsheet of spending obtained from Colorado Parks and Wildlife via a public records request. Costs have remained under the amount appropriated to the program by state lawmakers, but are almost twice the amount estimated to the voters who elected to reintroduce the native species. Spending on the program started years before the first capture of wolves from Oregon and their release in central Colorado in December.