Colorado to Relocate Gray Wolves After Reports of Livestock Attacks

Less than nine months after the first gray wolves were released into the wild in Colorado, amid widespread attention as part of an ambitious reintroduction program, officials are now scrambling to capture and move the state’s first breeding pack.

The announcement by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials on Tuesday that two of the 10 wolves that were released — along with three pups that they had this year — would be moved from their current area came after the animals were accused of attacking nearby livestock.

The plan to relocate those wolves, known as the Copper Creek pack, is potentially a setback for the state’s reintroduction program, a contentious effort that was narrowly voted into law by a referendum in 2020.

The gray wolf is native to Colorado, but the animals had been eradicated by the mid-1940s, according to Colorado State University. The 2020 referendum reignited longstanding tensions between cattle ranchers, livestock farmers and hunters — who see the wolves as a threat — and conservationists, who point to their potential ecological benefits.

Wolves kill a very small percentage of livestock, but a few have wandered into Colorado from nearby states in past years and killed or injured farm animals. In December 2023, 10 gray wolves were released onto public land in Summit and Grand Counties.

Jeff Davis, the director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said in a statement that the recent “decision to capture and relocate the Copper Creek pack was made with the careful consideration of multiple factors” and that it was “by no means a precedent for how C.P.W. will resolve wolf-livestock conflict moving forward.”

“The ultimate goal of the operation is to relocate the pack to another location while we assess our best options for them to continue to contribute to the successful restoration of wolves in Colorado,” he said.

The agency said that, for the safety of both the animals and its staff, it would not say where the pack would be relocated, but noted that it would provide more information at the end of the operation.

Michael Saul, the director of the Rockies and Plains program at Defenders of Wildlife, a wildlife conservation nonprofit, said he was baffled by the decision to relocate the wolves because Colorado law “strikes a balance” between the animals and the needs of ranchers.

There is also a “very generous compensation program” for any rancher who loses livestock or “in some cases, even suspects losing livestock to wolves,” he said.

In a statement, Defenders of Wildlife denounced the plan to relocate the pack and pointed to a Colorado Parks and Wildlife letter that suggests that “this tragic decision is the result of producers’ refusal to accept the help and advice they were offered.”

That letter states that while some nonlethal measures were taken on the property that suffered wolf-related attacks, others were delayed or refused. It also mentions “an open dead pit” that might have been attracting the predators.

But Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association and a fifth generation rancher, said the decision to relocate the wolves was “a long time coming.” There have been at least 15 confirmed kills from the Copper Creek pack, he said.

“If this would have happened in any other state, those wolves would have been removed a long time ago,” he added.

The state did not immediately respond on Thursday to questions about the number of kills.

Mr. Ritschard, who is in the cow calf industry, said ranchers like him were “trying to grow a product for the American people,” and wolves make an already demanding job even harder.

It’s difficult to say how much money he loses when a wolf kills a calf, Mr. Ritschard said, but noted that if he loses a calf when it is a yearling (the stage of life between a calf and a heifer) then he’s “not even getting a year in income on her because she never became a mother.”

“If a wolf wanders in and kills a cow or calf, that’s tolerable,” he said. “But when they set up camp and repeatedly depredate on livestock, that’s the problem.”

Mr. Ritschard said that his group was working on a response to the Parks and Wildlife letter, but noted that “the burden was placed on us the producers.”

Marc Bekoff, behavioral ecologist and professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said there needed to be a give-and-take if the wolf is to be successfully reintroduced to Colorado.

The wolves need time to adapt to their new surroundings, Dr. Bekoff said, noting that the animals were taken from their home in Oregon. That a pack was formed and three pups were born within the first year of the program was an incredible feat, and that’s why he’s concerned that relocating the pack could harm the wolves.

“There’s some good scientific evidence that breaking up a pack, especially removing the leader, can lead to the dissolution of the group,” he said, warning against trapping the wolves individually and then releasing them into a new home in the wild.

At this early stage, any intrusion on the “integrity of the pack could be really damaging,” he said. If they must be relocated, it has to happen as a group — a difficult task.

Dr. Bekoff called the Copper Creek pack “the promise for the future of Colorado wolves,” and he said he was dismayed that it was already potentially being derailed by human intervention.

“My concern is that the wolves haven’t had time to adapt, habituate,” he said. “People might disagree with me, but this is really a sign that maybe Colorado isn’t ready for wolves.”