Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis is urging the public to “lean in” as 15 wolves transplanted from British Columbia and five wolves from the captured Copper Creek pack get their footing in Pitkin and Eagle counties less than a week after they were released.
“Now is a time to celebrate,” he said, “not in front of those directly impacted. But to roll up our sleeves collectively to help support our ranching and rural communities.”
“CPW will succeed in restoring the healthy, self- sustaining population of wolves in Colorado while at the same time supporting our agricultural communities and the vital role that they play in Colorado’s overall human health and well being, economy, heritage and our conservation efforts,” he added.
Davis’ remarks came during an hourlong press conference from CPW headquarters on Monday. He was flanked by Dan Gibbs, executive director of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources, and Eric Odell, CPW’s wolf conservation program manager.
Sitting beneath the iconic CPW seal, the men seemed exhausted but elated.
Odell said the operation had ended for him at 2:30 a.m. that morning.
“Months of planning went into weeks of work,” he said. Officials involved included him, other CPW biologists, members of British Columbia’s fish and wildlife branch, veterinarians and helicopter pilots to locate the wolves, capture them in nets, tranquilize them and put them in crates.
Once captured, a transport helicopter would be called in and a CPW staffer with a veterinarian would go to a location to evaluate the wolves, Odell said. The capture took several such missions and “during one of the most remarkable ones” the rotors on a helicopter that had landed shut down, he said, “and you could just hear wolves howling all around.”
CPW said the capture and release started on Jan. 10 and concluded on Jan. 16. In British Columbia, Odell said three to five wolves were netted and then let go because they didn’t “meet the criteria we had set out.” They were either too young or too old. One animal had a glazed-over eye. None of the wolves had a history of killing livestock, he said, “because they were in north central British Columbia, where there does not happen to be livestock.”
One wolf died in its pen after it was captured and brought back to a base in British Columbia. A necropsy later revealed it had a diseased liver and was possibly not able to metabolize the drugs used for sedation. Odell said it’s important to emphasize that any time CPW takes on a wildlife capture operation, it’s risky to animals. “So it’s not something we want to happen,” he added, “but it’s something that does happen periodically.”
Another highlight for Odell was when representatives from three indigenous First Nations were “given a tour of the operation” including “what it looked like for us to capture and process wolves,” and then did a smudging ceremony for the wolves, which they revere as sacred and their relatives.
The capture operation was the start to the second wave of gray wolf reintroduction in Colorado. Voters in 2020 narrowly approved a ballot measure directing CPW to re-establish a self-sustaining population of wolves west of the Continental Divide, a process that could take as many as five rounds of translocation. The first animals came from Oregon and were released in December 2023.
Absorbing threats and addressing the Copper Creek pack
But not every part of the operation was biologically breathtaking or culturally moving. Before and during the mission CPW staff were threatened in social media posts and phone calls, the agency reported.
When asked if the men at the table, including deputy director Reid DeWalt, found the threats “hurtful,” Davis responded, “Public service is not for the meek when we serve, here in Colorado, 5.8 million people. With visitors, in actuality, we serve even more than that. So to get some of the level of threats that we’ve been receiving, is that concerning? Yes. Is it hurtful? Yes. If you’re human and someone is threatening you, your family or animals you have some responsibility for, I think the answer to that is a pretty definitive ‘yes.’”
Odell said he hasn’t had a chance to review data showing the newly released wolves’ movement, but that the 15 from British Columbia, plus five wolves in the Copper Creek pack, which were captured in September and have been in captivity since, were let go in multiple locations in Pitkin and Eagle counties.
Odell added the Copper Creek pack was not released north of I-70 like some of the wolves from British Columbia. The Copper Creek pack’s release location has been a major concern of ranchers in Grand County, after the male and female denned close to Conway Farrell’s ranch and fed on his cattle and sheep. Five pups were later born there, and the worry was if the pack was released close to the site, they would return, with the pups also feeding on the livestock.
Davis said the female and four of her pups were “a unique translocation” and that despite misinformation, the pups never killed any livestock. Now relocated south of I-70 in either Pitkin or Eagle county, CPW’s goal, Davis said, is to be “more proactive to avoid their first depredation.”
That will be possible because “now we have site assessments, which we didn’t have last year,” he said.
“Wolves are even smarter (than dogs) and you can teach them,” he added.
And he said the agency believes the puppies’ ordeal of being trapped, put in crates, held in captivity and having humans “poking and prodding them,” may already have altered their behavior.
“But another really critically important thing here is that we have additional staff capacity. We have people doing site assessments,” he said. “We have the non-lethal equipment drop-in enrollment. We’ll have information being shared with the ranchers when there’s wolf activity (near their cattle). And we’ll have range riders up and trained and ready to go by calving season.”
As a last stop, CPW now finally has a definition of chronic depredation, which they can use to determine if a wolf repeatedly preying on livestock needs to be killed.
“But the goal isn’t just to kill wolves for killing sake, right?” said Davis. “The goal is to avoid and minimize livestock-wolf conflicts. So we have these programs in place. We’ll implement those. People are doing a great job on their site assessments, working with us and the Department of Agriculture. And if we hit the chronic depredation definition, that is the trigger point, though unintended, for lethal management.”
CPW’s northwest regional manager Travis Black said he’s had three reports of wolf prints in either Eagle or Pitkin county and one unconfirmed report of a wolf sighting.
Federal land comprises about 85% of Pitkin County and 80% of Eagle County. Currently CPW cannot release wolves on federal land, which prompted a reporter to ask if the agency would enter the lengthy, expensive permitting process known as NEPA that would be needed to release the wolves on federal land.
Davis said no.
“We’d be talking a minimum of two years, probably at least $1 million to $2 million more dollars” to go through the process. “And quite frankly, when you pencil out the plan saying we’ll do releases for three to five years, by the time we get done with the NEPA we’re done with releases. So to me, if I’m being fiscally conservative as a public servant, the math doesn’t work out for that to be a smart investment in time and financial resources.”
Secrecy a necessity?
As the meeting wore on, Davis seemed to grow weary of answering questions about “secrecy” around the latest release.
He told one reporter he didn’t know how secrecy was being defined and that logistical confines had dictated when and where the wolves were released. Those included “flights landing here in the evening hours,” and “not holding animals and crates longer than animal welfare would recommend.”
“So those animals were going out at night,” he continued. “There’s also just the planning of the elevated security risks that we were monitoring. We didn’t design the whole operation around those threats (but) around when we could get animals here and how quickly we could get them out of the cages.” CPW is not trying to be secret, he added, “but we have a responsibility to our staff and the safety of those animals, that’s always the balance in any sort of operation that we’re doing.”
“I would argue if the calls for increased violence or the security threats were reduced, that would be helpful,” he said.
Release of the first wolves from British Columbia occurred on Jan. 12, the 30th anniversary of wolves being released in Yellowstone National Park. Odell said he wasn’t aware of the coincidence until someone pointed it out. “But this is a very historic event,” he said, “the first time a state has reintroduced wolves.”
“It’s also a big responsibility for CPW to take on,” he added, “because it’s another species that we manage, and the restoration of our native wildlife is a priority whether it’s for wolves or Canada lynx or black-footed ferrets.”