State wildlife managers killed a wolf this week, the second yearling wolf the state has lethally removed in less than two months.
The death of the uncollared wolf from the One Ear Pack brings the total number of uncollared yearling wolf deaths to three after another was found dead along the side of a highway less than two weeks ago.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it killed the latest wolf after it repeatedly attacked livestock in Grand and Jackson counties. Cattle deaths were confirmed June 29 in Jackson County and July 26, Friday and Saturday in Grand County, despite the producers using state-authorized nonlethal conflict minimization tactics.
Tuesday’s fatality brings the total death count for wolves to 17 since Colorado began reintroducing them in December 2023. The state has imported a total of 25 wolves from Oregon and British Columbia during the reintroduction program’s short history.
Not all of the deaths are wolves from the original 25. The last three were uncollared, indicating they were born in Colorado.
On June 12, wildlife agents killed a wolf from the Copper Creek pack that had been left behind as a pup after CPW had captured and relocated the rest of the pack in Grand County.
Last month, another uncollared wolf was found dead on the side of a highway, thought to have been struck by a car.
The wolf killed Tuesday was a yearling from the One Ear Pack whose father migrated into Colorado from Wyoming and mated with a female wolf brought from Oregon, according to a conservationist familiar with the pack and its origins.
State officials have raised concerns about Colorado’s wolf program with more than half of the original 25 wolves dead less than three years into the program.
But based on an announcement from CPW on July 22, wolf survival and establishment in the state is improving.
On July 22, CPW confirmed the successful reproduction of three existing wolf packs and the formation of a new pack — Piney Ridge — all with litters ranging between four and six pups. Combined with a first generation of pups, that could bring the total number of wolves into the 50s, inching them closer to the 150 the state believes is needed for a self-sustaining population.
The latest wolf activity map shows wolves moving from east of I-25, where they had ranged briefly in June, back west, with wolf activity remaining most consistent in watersheds in Jackson, Grand, Summit, Pitkin and Garfield counties.