Wildlife advocates lament death of wolf that was captured for relocation

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials release 1 of 5 gray wolves onto public land in Grand County, Dec. 18, 2023 (photo courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife).

Wildlife advocates said Monday that they were “devastated” by the death of a reintroduced wolf that was captured late last month following a series of livestock depredations in the Middle Park area, and continued to place blame for the situation on a lack of effective conflict management and nonlethal control measures.

Colorado wildlife officials on Monday announced that they had completed the capture of the first breeding wolf pack established as part of the state’s reintroduction efforts, made up of two adults and four pups. The adult male wolf was captured in poor condition, with several injuries “unrelated to the capture,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a statement, and died on Sept. 3. CPW staff say it’s “unlikely the wolf would have survived for very long in the wild.”

Known as the Copper Creek pack, the animals were captured beginning last month following repeated complaints from livestock producers and the confirmed depredation of at least 15 cattle and nine sheep in Grand and Routt counties this year, according to CPW data. The agency called the situation a “unique case” and said it made its decision “with the careful consideration of multiple factors and feedback from many different stakeholders.”

“For Colorado’s first reintroduced wolf pack to be taken off the landscape is a real setback for the restoration effort that Colorado voters chose,” Chris Smith, wildlife program director for advocacy group WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement Monday. “CPW staff appear to have done what they could to mitigate this situation, but it seems that not everyone was invested in coexistence. The death of a wolf is a terrible tragedy.”

The state’s wolf reintroduction program fulfills a voter-approved 2020 ballot initiative to reintroduce the animals in Colorado in the name of restoring ecological balance. The measure, Proposition 114, was passed by a narrow 51% to 49% margin, and though it includes provisions to compensate livestock producers for depredations, it has been bitterly opposed by Colorado’s ranching industry, which said in a letter to state leaders last month that its concerns “have been consistently overlooked.”

A total of 10 reintroduced wolves captured in Oregon, including the two adults that formed the Copper Creek pack, were released in Grand and Summit counties in December 2023, and have ranged widely in the mountains north of the Interstate 70 corridor since then. The state’s reintroduction plan calls for annual winter releases of 10 to 15 wolves per year over the next three to five years, with an initial target of a stable population of at least 50 animals within the state.

“We are still in the early stages of the restoration plan,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said in a Monday statement on the Copper Creek pack’s capture. “Our legal obligation to Colorado voters is to continue working towards a sustainable population.”

“We will take the lessons we’ve learned here and apply them as we continue to build out a strong program alongside our federal and state partners, and both the wolf restoration advocacy and ranching communities,” Davis added. “The more we’re able to listen to understand one another and increase cooperation, the better off we’ll all be in the long run.”

The remaining animals in the Copper Creek pack are currently being held in a “large, secure enclosure with limited human interaction,” CPW officials said, the location of which the agency is not disclosing “for the safety of these animals and staff.” CPW said that once the pups reach adulthood, it plans to “release them into the wild together so they can contribute to wolf restoration in Colorado.”

“While this is not the recourse we would have wanted, we are pleased to see the mother and pups are healthy at this time, and hope that they can continue to contribute to the success of this monumental restoration effort,” Michael Saul, the Rockies and Plains program director for advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said Monday. “CPW must now turn its attention to ensuring it does not have to come to this impossible decision again, which means enshrining a rule that all agency-recommended nonlethal conflict mitigation measures be timely and in good faith exhausted before any consideration of recapture and relocation.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and X.