Another Colorado gray wolf is dead, bringing the total number of translocated wolves that have died since the start of reintroduction to 11, or nearly half of the 25 that were released in the state between December 2023 and January 2025.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said female gray wolf 2504 died in northwestern Colorado and the cause of her death won’t be known until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completes a necropsy, “a foundational component of the overall investigation process.”
A yearling wolf Colorado Parks and Wildlife killed in May after it preyed on livestock in Pitkin County brings the total number of wolves that have died since reintroduction started to 12.
The new death drops the survival rate of reintroduced wolves to 56%, well below the early survival rates the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission anticipated when it adopted the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan after Colorado residents voted to reintroduce wolves in 2020.
The plan said a survival rate of less than 70% six months after release would “initiate a protocol review” and if there is an unusually large number of losses during the first year of releases “or following any modification to established protocols” a full review of management procedures would be prompted.
Modifications to established protocols have arguably been made, because CPW so far this year has been unable to bring more wolves to the state. The plan calls for releasing 30 to 50 animals over a three-to-five-year timeframe and that reintroduction will be a success when wolves remain in Colorado; when reintroduced wolves successfully form pairs and reproduce, establishing packs; and when wolves born in Colorado survive and also successfully reproduce.
But in October, Fish and Wildlife Director Brian Nesvik sent CPW a “cease and desist” order for sourcing more wolves from British Columbia. Then in November, Washington state denied the agency’s request for wolves. And on Dec. 18, Fish and Wildlife threatened to take control of Colorado’s reintroduction if CPW didn’t send a full accounting of all of its conservation and management moves starting with the first release two years ago by Jan. 18.
A gray wolf is carried from a helicopter to the site where it will be checked by CPW staff in January 2025. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife photo)A Department of Natural Resources spokesperson said the agency met Fish and Wildlife’s deadline.
But Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado and a staunch wolf advocate, said “the death of any wolf at this point is a serious loss. I don’t know who it was but it could be a potential mother or father or an important member of a pack.”
CPW didn’t answer if wolf 2504 had bred or had pups. Agency spokesperson Luke Perkins confirmed four wolf packs in the state on Jan. 6. With surviving wolves and pups, an estimated 19 wolves are on the ground now.
Other female wolves from British Columbia have died. Of the 15 wolves released in Pitkin and Eagle counties last January, eight were males and seven were females.
Six of those 15 wolves from Canada died last year, including a female killed by a mountain lion in Rocky Mountain National Park, a male hit by a vehicle in northwestern Colorado and a female that died in May when it was caught in a legal foothold trap set for coyotes. Four of the 10 released in Summit and Grand counties in 2023 have died.
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