Colorado has a new source for the next 15 reintroduced wolves
Wildlife officials were seeking a secondary source of wolves after a Washington Tribe backed out in June due to public backlash over the reintroduction efforts
Colorado Parks and Wildlife/Courtesy photo
Colorado has found a source for the next 15 gray wolves that will be released into the state’s northern reintroduction zone.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced on Friday that British Columbia will provide up to 15 wolves this winter through a partnership with the B.C. Ministry of Water, Lands, and Resource Stewardship.
Up to 15 wolves will be captured in the Canadian province and relocated to Colorado between December 2024 and March 2025.
The wolves will be released in the northern zone as outlined in Colorado’s Wolf Restoration and Management Plan. This area follows the Interstate 70 corridor between Glenwood Springs and Vail and down into the Roaring Fork Valley.
“We are grateful to the B.C. Ministry of Water, Lands, and Resource Stewardship for working with our agency on this critical next step in reintroducing gray wolves in the state,” stated Jeff Davis, director of the state’s Parks and Wildlife, in a press release. “Their willingness and ability to work with another jurisdiction to support our conservation priorities, as they have in past translocation efforts, demonstrates their long-shared commitment to seeing this species succeed.”
Colorado’s first 10 wolves came from Oregon, and state officials were expecting to receive 15 additional wolves from The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington this year. However, in June, the Washington tribe announced it would no longer provide the state with the wolves citing public objection in Colorado to the wolves.
With a new source secured, Parks and Wildlife is on track with its restoration and management plan, which states the agency will release 10 to 15 gray wolves on the West Slope per year, for a total of 3 to 5 years.
Eric Odell, the agency’s wolf conservation program manager, stated in the release that it has “learned a great deal from last year’s successful capture and transport efforts and will apply those lessons this year as we work to establish a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado.”
Parks and Wildlife will start capture operations this winter, with British Columbia providing assistance in planning and carrying out the operation. The agency will be responsible for all costs associated with the capture and transport. Once wolves are captured in Canada, they will be tested and treated for disease and evaluated for relocation.
Per the wolf restoration and management plan, Parks and Wildlife is not to reintroduce any wolves with major injuries nor any that are from packs currently involved in repeated livestock depredations.
All wolves that are reintroduced will be collared and transported to Colorado via airplane and/or truck as soon as possible to minimize stress on the animals.
The first 10 wolves were captured in Oregon using a helicopter and spotter plane. Nine of these wolves were transported in aluminum crates to Colorado using a private aircraft, with one wolf arriving in the state in a vehicle.
“Gray wolves from the Canadian Rockies were used for reintroduction in Idaho and Yellowstone,” Odell stated in the release. “There are no biological differences between wolves in British Columbia and the wolves released in Colorado last year, and the new source population will provide additional genetic diversity to our state’s small but growing wolf population.”
Only seven of the wolves reintroduced in December 2023 are still alive. The state also has four wolf pups from the Copper Creek Pack, who are being held in captivity, as well as two wolves that were in the state prior to its reintroduction efforts.
The first death among Colorado’s reintroduced wolves occurred in April following a mountain lion attack. A second adult male from the Copper Creek Pack died in captivity on Sept. 3. The wolf was found with a hind leg injury and infection during relocation operations after the pack was tied to several livestock depredations. A third adult male wolf died on Monday, Sept. 9. The cause of both deaths in September are still being investigated.
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