Gray wolf releases cancelled for Colorado this year

Focus will be on next winter and on managing those already here

By Katherine Nettles 

Despite previous plans for gray wolf releases in Gunnison County this winter, that plan has officially been cancelled. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced last week that it will not translocate additional gray wolves this release season and will instead focus on exploring options for translocations in winter 2026/2027. The announcement was somewhat expected, as CPW has had difficulty sourcing wolves under new constraints imposed from the federal government.

CPW first released gray wolves in north-central Colorado in 2023 following a 2020 voter-approved initiative to reintroduce the species to Colorado after they had been eradicated from the state for almost 80 years. CPW planned to release wolves this winter in the southern release zone, which largely includes Gunnison County, however several forces at play cast doubt on that possibility prior to CPW’s announcement.

Gunnison County officials and livestock producers have asked CPW to pause their release efforts while addressing issues of the prior two years of releases; then this summer CPW’s director resigned and finally, this fall the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service directed CPW that it could no longer source wolves from Canada. Colorado has been unable to secure agreements from approved Northern Rocky Mountain states like Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to capture and translocate members of their gray wolf populations.

“The process of relocating wolves must occur during winter, and the window for securing a source population for this year’s efforts is closing,” said Luke Perkins, public information officer for CPW. “So CPW will be taking this time to continue to meet with producers and other stakeholders to continue to improve the agency’s conflict minimization program and looking for options for translocations in winter 2026/2027.”

Perkins explained that CPW had a multi-year agreement and a signed contract with British Columbia’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. The agreement allows CPW to translocate 10-15 wolves in partnership with British Columbia.

“The contract covered this year’s planned translocations including reimbursement for cost incurred by BC during the operations but was canceled for this translocation season,” said Perkins. “This MOU, as well as last year’s partnership, were based on consultations with USFWS and were signed before recent guidance from the USFWS was received.”

CPW issued a press release on January 21, stating its intention to instead focus this season on wolf-livestock conflict minimization programs on the Western Slope and prepare for next winter.

“During this intermediate time, CPW will continue to meet with producers and other stakeholders, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to explore how to maximize the restoration effort and achieve our plan of establishing a self-sustaining gray wolf population in Colorado,” said CPW acting director Laura Clellan. “Our team has invested in a significant conflict minimization program, and we look forward to exploring how we continue to improve this program with producers to protect both livestock and wolves.”

The wolves are already here

The Gunnison County landscape already has already had a few wolves on it, which have moved through the county over the past year.

Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck updated his fellow commissioners in a meeting last week, prior to CPW’s announcement, that he believed there would be no releases this winter. He said in speaking regularly with CPW and local CPW wildlife manager Brandon Diamond, he was aware of two wolves consistently travelling around the Gunnison Valley.

“One wolf, we call the long-hauler,” said Houck. “She does these massive, hundreds of miles [of travel] through the Gunnison Basin and then loops back up, often through Montrose, Delta, Garfield County, crosses I-70 and gets north, and then comes all the way back through Leadville, Buena Vista, hops the divide and usually ends up in eastern or northern Gunnison County.” Houck described that the “long hauler” had completed two such loops.

Houck summarized that the valley does have occasional wolf presence as they have moved through, but has not had any confirmed depredations in recent months. CPW is aiming to keep that track record, vowing to keep working with producers using the tactics outlined in its Wolf-Livestock Conflict Minimization Program Guide and building on several other conflict mitigation milestones this year.

The CB News reached out to the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association for comment, however they had not responded as of press time.

Making improvements

In 2025, CPW established a Colorado Range Riding program to assist livestock producers during their open ranging seasons with additional human presence. The program is slated to expand in 2026; CPW also hired a Wolf Damage and Conflict Minimization Manager to oversee compensation for wolf damage, and the commission is bringing on more wildlife damage specialists to supplement the efforts of regional wildlife managers and staff in investigating suspected wolf depredations.

CPW says it is also expanding its “conflict minimization hard tool stockpile,” which includes about 45 miles of fladry (electrified flag-line fencing used to deter wolves) and more than 160 sound-and-light scare devices ready for deployment.

Last, CPW officials estimate they have completed more than 240 site assessments and will continue building on CPW’s “decades-long history” of investigating and preventing livestock conflicts through dedicated inter-agency training.

The impact of forgoing wolf releases this winter on Colorado’s wolf population is a complex situation to assess, according to CPW as the previous years of releases have resulted in relatively high mortality for the wolves. 

“The impact of no additional releases is dependent on several factors, including wolf survival and reproduction,” states the commission’s press release. “CPW has confirmed successful reproduction in four packs and its staff is working to determine how many pups made it through the summer and will be successfully recruited into the population. Female gray wolves give birth to an average litter of four to six pups.” 

CPW Wolf Program manager Eric Odell added, “When populations are small, the contribution of each individual is especially significant.” He said it was impossible to predict the impact of foregoing a third year of translocations until the commission sees how this coming year goes.

“If mortality remains high, as observed in 2025, the risk of failing to achieve a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado increases, potentially requiring additional resources to address,” said Odell.

The commission says it will keep making management decisions on a case-by-case basis as it evaluates circumstances and “relevant law.”

“This is a complicated effort, and I want to encourage all stakeholders to continue to work together as we move toward the goal of creating a self-sustaining population of wolves in the state, while at the same time minimizing conflict with livestock,” concluded Clellan.