Ranchers are calling multiple wolf attacks on cattle over Memorial Day weekend in Pitkin County “devastating” and evidence Colorado Parks and Wildlife is failing to keep its promise to alert ranchers when wolves are in range of their livestock.
The attacks occurred over three days on the Crystal River Ranch, in the Crystal River Valley, and on the Lost Marbles and McCabe ranches, in the Roaring Fork Valley.
The first happened early Friday morning on the Crystal River Ranch, according to Tom Harrington, manager of the ranch and president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.
Wolves killed a second calf on the McCabe Ranch Saturday.
And on Sunday, wolves separated a cow and a calf from a herd on the Lost Marbles Ranch and severely injured the calf.
A press release from the cattlemen’s association identified the wolf that killed Harrington’s calf, as well as two other wolves that killed and attacked the other livestock, as members of Colorado’s first established pack following the first release of reintroduction in late 2023, the Copper Creek pack, which killed numerous sheep and cattle on two ranches in Grand County last spring.
The deaths over Memorial Day weekend had not been added to CPW’s running list of confirmed depredations Tuesday evening.
CPW has said it will alert ranchers to wolves in their area, as part of its stated goal to be more transparent during the state’s wolf reintroduction program, which is predicted to last three to five years, until a sustainable wolf population is established.
But Harrington said he was first alerted to a wolf in his area not by CPW but by his friend and neighbor, who is also a Colorado Department of Agriculture brand inspector.
The inspector told him a range rider employed by CPW had been dispatched to the Crystal River Ranch BLM allotment where Harrington periodically grazes his cattle, “without any knowledge, any contacts, or any mapping” just instruction to, he said, “go ride this permit. There’s a wolf on that side of the valley.”
But when Harrington saw the map of the area the range rider was sent to patrol, it revealed he was on the wrong land, he said. Harrington called Max Morton, who directs the agency’s hired range riders. The map Morton shared showed a wolf ranging on Crystal River Ranch private property adjacent to the BLM allotment, where Harrington was grazing 200 cow-calf pairs (he has since moved them).
Harrington sent his ranch foreman to the correct area. But it wasn’t until the next morning, he said, that received a call from the state district wildlife manager.
“He says, ‘Hey, you got a wolf on you. I just wanted to let you know.’ And I said, yeah, I found out yesterday. Where the hell were you?”
“I learned about it last night,” Harrington said he told the manager, “and I have a guy looking right now.”
Harrington’s foreman called him about 10 minutes later to report a dead calf near a water tank on a 2,000-acre pasture on Crystal River Ranch private land, he said. “So I called the district wildlife manager back, and I said ‘get somebody out here.’”
The manager arrived with a second official who photographed the calf, which Harrington described as “gutted like a fish. He was clean. There was nothing left inside. And he was a big, healthy calf, around 180 to 200 pounds.”
Officials took the hide to inspect it for teeth marks and sent Harrington a wolf depredation compensation form for the loss of the calf, he said. That night, the range rider sat on the water tank scanning the land for wolves through a thermal spotting scope. He saw nothing, Harrington said, but the next morning “we had a ton of wolf tracks.”
No further attacks have occurred on the Crystal River land. But “unfortunately, the same wolf is still in the proximity,” Harrington said. “So if he comes back, he’ll be closer to where the cows are currently.”
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Harrington said wolves killed a yearling heifer on the Lost Marbles Ranch in March. It belonged to rancher Mike Cerveny, who leases land from the owners. Cerveny lost a second calf there over the weekend.
Harrington said since March, Cerveny has had seven calves go missing “during calving time. He would see a brand new baby calf with a cow nursing the calf. Everything’s cool. The next morning, he would go out, and the cow’s bawling, can’t find her calf, no sign of it, gone.”
The owners of the Lost Marbles Ranch confirmed the injury that occurred on Sunday.
“We do not have much to say,” they told The Colorado Sun. “We are dealing with CPW and trying to find solutions.”
Cerveny did not return The Sun’s call Tuesday evening.
A CPW spokesperson Tuesday evening said it is conducting investigations into the “recent potential wolf-livestock depredation events” and that it will “provide further investigations when the investigations are final.”
CPW released 10 wolves from Oregon into Summit and Grand counties in December 2023 and another 15 from British Columbia in January. Five Copper Creek wolves — a female and four of her now yearling pups that were captured in Grand County last fall after multiple confirmed livestock kills — were released with the British Columbia wolves in Pitkin and Eagle counties.
CPW said earlier this month as many as four wolf pairs could be denning, based on data from their collars.
And Harrington said in a conversation over the weekend, CPW’s northwest regional manager Travis Black agreed with him that the recent attacks are enough to meet the requirements of chronic depredation, which CPW defines as “three or more depredations caused by the same wolf or wolves within 30 days,” and could result in the agency killing the offending wolves.
CPW declined to kill the adults in the Copper Creek pack last year, fearing that the pups could not survive without their parents.