DENVER — A map released Wednesday by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) shows that gray wolves have crossed into watersheds east of the Continental Divide and onto the Front Range.
The new CPW map shows collared wolf activity between March 26 and April 23. The map shows that over the past month, at least one wolf with a GPS collar traveled in watersheds in Larimer County.
Ten gray wolves were released in Grand and Summit counties in mid-December in accordance with a voter-approved reintroduction program. Those were in addition to two wolves that dispersed into Jackson County on their own and produced six pups in 2021. In February 2023, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials placed collars on two of those wolves in North Park.
On April 18, authorities confirmed that one of the reintroduced wolves was found dead in Larimer County. The wolf appeared to die from natural causes, though a necropsy will determine the cause of death.
Two of the 10 collars placed on reintroduced wolves have failed. CPW said the animals with failed collars are traveling with wolves that have functioning collars. Wildlife officials also confirmed the wolves with the failed collars are alive after seeing them from an airplane, CPW said.
The CPW activity map shows wolf activity in watersheds. Just because an area shows wolf activity doesn't mean that wolves are present through the entire watershed or are currently there, CPW said.
CPW said the collars record a position every four hours. After four locations are recorded, that data is transmitted via satellite to biologists. CPW staff can use the data to see where wolves have been but not where they are at any current point in time, the agency said.
The map will be updated on the fourth Wednesday of every month, CPW said.
CPW also said on Wednesday that it has launched a website for wolf depredation reports to keep the public informed about confirmed livestock deaths by wolves.
Wolves have killed six cattle in Grand and Jackson counties this month. Several stockgrowers associations asked CPW to lethally remove the wolves responsible for the livestock deaths.
CPW responded in a letter on Tuesday that the wolf possibly responsible for the depredations is the male of a pair that are "denning" and that the female's GPS collar indicates she is likely in a den. The letter says that removing the "male breeder" would be irresponsible management and possibly cause the den to fail.
"The biological interpretation of this is that she was likely in a den during the time when connectivity with the collar was interrupted, which aligns with the expected timing of wolf reproduction," the letter says. "This would be the first den from wolves reintroduced to Colorado. We are working diligently to confirm the den, and hope to have information on this soon."
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