Correction: CPW has paid $2,855 in depredation claims, not $43,748, in 2024 with 8 claims pending, according to the agency's website.
It’s been just over a year since the first gray wolves came to Colorado as part of a reintroduction effort approved by voters in 2020. It’s been a tumultuous year for the wolves and for the livestock industry.
On Jan. 2, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released results of a necropsy, which showed that a gunshot wound led to the death of Wolf #2309, the father of the Copper Creek Pack, on Sept. 3. Fish and Wildlife officials and several conservation groups are offering a reward of more than $100,000 for information about the shooting. Wolf #2309 is not the first wolf to be shot since reintroduction efforts began in Dec. 2023. Wolf #2307, who died Sept. 9, had a healed gunshot wound in his leg.
The Coloradoan reports that #2307 was found dead on public land north of Kremmling in the same area where a cow and calf were confirmed to be killed by wolves on the same day. No connection has been made between the predations and the wolf’s death.
But, some ranchers have had enough. “Good morning commissioners. We wanted to talk today about a petition to temporarily delay further wolf reintroduction” said Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Cattlemen's Association, who spoke at the Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting in November. He called for a rulemaking that would pause wolf reintroduction until certain demands were met.
Ritschard said that stockgrowers would like to see Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) “Adapt a definition of chronic depredation, implement a program to conduct site vulnerability assessment and educate producers about this program, implement a widespread effective range riding program, implement a carcass management program based on best practices, hire and train a rapid response team to respond to reports of depredating wolves, communicate with livestock producers in advance of any introduction that could affect them.”
CPW Director Jeff Davis said the agency has been working on stock growers demands. “We're working on not just what those concerns were in the petition itself. We've been working on those long before we got a petition and we're working on even more than just those concerns to really vastly improve our programs and response.”
Davis has since recommended against a pause. But Ritschard has not stopped there. In late December, he submitted three depredation claims from Grand County ranchers, which total close to $600,000. These claims have not been added to CPW's website, which shows a total of $43,748.12 in wolf-related predation payments this year, with one claim pending. In late November, on behalf of other livestock growers, Ritschard also sent a letter to Canadian officials, asking them to reconsider exporting wolves to Colorado.
Conservationists and wolf advocates sent their own letter one week later, urging Canada to carry on. Delia Malone, president of Colorado Wild, told KDNK that the nine wolves on the ground in the state won't survive unless more wolves are reintroduced. “They cannot breed, they cannot form territories, they cannot be successful unless there are more wolves reintroduced,” she said. “And these Canadian wolves can help meet that ecological need and ethical and voter- mandated imperatives.”
Meanwhile, nine collared wolves continue to move across the Colorado landscape. CPW's location map shows new movement in watersheds in Larimer County and west into southern Moffat County.
