Colorado conservationists are relocating two reintroduced wolves and their pups after a series of predators — a setback for the historic and controversial reintroduction program launched late last year.
The pack of wolves, called the Copper Creek pack, will be captured from the wild in Grand County, Colorado parks and wildlife announced Tuesday evening. The agency has not announced where the pack will be moved, citing the need to protect the wolves and CPW personnel.
“The decision to capture and relocate the Copper Creek pack was made with careful consideration of multiple factors and feedback from many different stakeholders,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said in a statement. “Our options in this unique case were very limited, and this action in no way sets a precedent for how CPW will resolve the wolf-livestock conflict in the future.
“The ultimate goal of the operation is to relocate the pack to another location while we assess the best options for them to continue contributing to the successful recovery of wolves in Colorado.”
The move announcement comes less than 10 days after the wildlife agency announced evidence of at least three pups born this spring and shared a video of the pups playing in a puddle. The pups are the first born to wolves released in December as part of a voter-mandated reintroduction of the predator species that was wiped out from Colorado nearly a century ago.
Agency leaders will provide more information about the move after the targeted wolves are captured, according to the statement.
The agency’s statement on the move raises more questions than it answers, said Michael Saul, director of the Rockies and Plains Program at Defenders of Wildlife, which advocated for the reintroduction. Saul wanted to know if CPW will keep the pack together during the capture and translocation efforts, where they will be taken and where they will be released back into the wild – if at all.
“This reintroduction is in its weak, early stages and I just don’t understand how it makes sense to give up the only breeding pack we have,” he said.
The wolves of the Copper Creek pack, including the famous pups, are among at least a dozen of the animals now roaming the mountains of Colorado. Eight other adults were released in December after their capture and translocation from Oregon, and a few wolves from Wyoming naturally migrated into the state earlier. One of the displaced wolves was found dead in the spring.
Colorado voters narrowly voted in favor of the reintroduction program in 2020, fueled primarily by voters along the urban Front Range. Many ranchers have opposed the effort, saying the return of wolves threatens their livelihoods and way of life.
Colorado is the first state to reintroduce the apex predator.
Since reintroduction, wolves have killed or injured at least nine sheep and 15 cattle Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s list of confirmed depredations. Most of this depredation was caused by the paired wolves in Middle Park, which formed the Copper Creek pack, Reid DeWalt, CPW deputy director for the agency’s Aquatic, Terrestrial and Natural Resources Division, said Friday at a meeting of the Parks and Wildlife Commission.
“We’ve had a few more depredations from the other wolves, but nothing to the level we’ve seen in Middle Park,” he said.
Ranchers in Middle Park have repeatedly asked the agency to take action to stop the wolves’ depredations, but the agency has so far refused to intervene and go beyond providing more non-lethal deterrents. The Middle Park Stockgrowers applied for a permit in the spring that would allow ranchers to kill predatory wolves, but the permit was denied.
DeWalt provided an update on the wolf reintroduction during the committee meeting, but made no mention of the possibility of relocating the wolves. Davis, CPW’s director, also made no mention of the move during his update to the committee.
The agency still plans to release more wolves this winter, DeWalt said Friday. CPW has not yet found a state or government willing to supply wolves after a Washington tribe rescinded its agreement to supply the canines.
But DeWalt said employees were confident they could find another source. The agency plans to release the next batch of wolves in the same northern zone they used late last year so they will increase the area’s wolf population, DeWalt said.
The agency has hired five predator conflict specialists. Their job is to focus primarily on wolf issues, but they will also deal with bear and mountain lion predations, DeWalt said.
The five specialists and other CPW personnel underwent two weeks of training in Oregon and Idaho to learn more about wolf management and how to deter depredations, he said.
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