Colorado Parks and Wildlife says it has killed a yearling wolf confirmed to have killed six sheep in Rio Blanco County. DNA samples identified it as the pup left behind when the agency trapped the Copper Creek pack back in August of 2024.
The news comes after a prolonged period of searching hampered by the Elk fire, which burned in northwestern Colorado from Aug. 2 to Aug. 17.
CPW spokesperson Luke Perkins said teams from CPW and the USDA’s wildlife services division were able to locate the uncollared wolf using thermal optics on the evening of Aug. 16. and wildlife services staff subsequently shot the wolf once with a .25-06 rifle.
They were unable to locate the wolf after shooting it, though, despite spending days methodically searching for the animal.
After six days, the team ended the search, but continued to monitor Rio Blanco County for signs of wolf activity or reports of wolf vocalizations.
Mention of vocalizations is important, because Kurt Holtzen, a predator conflict specialist, told the Fort Collins Coloradoan that when he was hazing the animal away from the sheep, it “howled day and night,” much more than any other wolf he said he has encountered.
Wolf advocates emailed The Colorado Sun after CPW announced the death, interpreting the howling as “a likely sign the young wolf was calling out for his lost family.” But Perkins said “wolves howl for a number of reasons including: signaling the start or conclusion of a hunt, notifying other wolves of their territory, and communicating with other dispersing wolves.”
The agency said its decision to implement lethal control was made in accordance with the law, including the USFWS 10(j) rule, which designates Colorado’s federally protected reintroduced wolves as a nonessential experimental population subject to killing as a form of management, Parks and Wildlife Commission regulations, and CPW’s administrative directive regarding chronic depredation and lethal removal of depredating gray wolves.
“This management decision was a response to six confirmed depredations in Rio Blanco County in late July and August,” the agency said. “Of these depredations, three were determined by clear and convincing evidence to have been caused by a wolf with the others being determined by a preponderance of evidence to have been caused by a wolf.”
The Copper Creek pack has been a source of grief for ranchers since last year, when two wolves moved to Colorado from Oregon mated and had five pups. Around that time, the male and possibly the female were killing livestock on two ranches in Grand County, according to CPW records.
The agency chose not to kill the male wolf when it suspected its mate was pregnant based on collar data. Later 5 pups were born and the agency in August decided to trap the pack to deal with the depredations.
The male, female and four pups were captured, but one uncollared pup evaded capture.
“CPW left it for dead when they removed his family last year,” said Mark Surls, Colorado coordinator for the animal advocacy group Project Coyote, said in a statement sent to The Colorado Sun. “He defied odds and survived on his own until CPW returned, this time killing him for preying on sheep grazing our public lands. It’s a tragic example of how policy continues to value livestock lives over those of Colorado’s wolves.”
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But CPW says there have been no additional depredations since the original shot was fired, indicating the pup was the wolf killing the sheep and thus meeting the definition for chronic depredation.
This is the third Copper Creek wolf that has died. Another male pup was killed in Pitkin County and the adult male in the pack died after it was captured. Eleven of the wolves moved to Colorado from Oregon and British Columbia have been killed by humans or predators.