‘Remove the problem wolves’: Rancher pleads after livestock killing continues

Two more animals were killed by wolves in Colorado, just days after a pack blamed for previous depredations was trapped and removed from the wild.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s official wolf predation report indicates that a cow and calf were involved in a wolf predation in Grand County on September 9th.

This is the 17th confirmed cattle raid in Colorado since March 24, involving a total of 27 animals. Eight of these incidents occurred in Grand County, where reintroduced wolves were released.

Notably, this is the first confirmed case of cattle theft since the capture of the Copper Creek pack, which was blamed for the July killings. The Copper Creek pack consisted of a breeding pair captured in late August and four pups captured the first week of September. However, the pack’s patriarch died shortly after capture due to pre-existing injuries. The remaining five members are now being held in a secret area for their own safety and to improve the puppies’ chances of survival.

“These wolves that came here, and it’s a completely different pack than Grand County, and they’ve been killing there north of Kremmling,” local rancher Conway Farrell said in an interview with Steamboat Radio’s Shannon Lukens. “This will continue to happen. CPW needs to step in as soon as these wolves exploit livestock in this way and they need to step in and remove the problem wolves. Otherwise it will be the same as the Copper.” The elk and deer numbers are so low here that CPW has mismanaged the number of elk we had five years ago to eat them, so they come in and there are no elk and deer to eat them and they go straight to ranching.

Latest reports indicate that seven of the 10 reintroduced wolves are still alive and in Colorado, along with two wolves that immigrated to the state from Wyoming and four pups born to the aforementioned mating pair – a total of 13 wolves in the Centennial State. More wolves are expected to be added to the landscape starting this winter, with this group of wolves set to be captured and relocated from Canada to Colorado.