Colorado Parks and Wildlife this week put down three young wolves, each in a different county, as conflict between the reintroduced predators and the state's ranching industry continues to intensify. Two of the animals were removed on Monday — one each from Pitkin and Rio Blanco counties — and a third was taken in Grand County on Wednesday.
All three belonged to a group of ten wolves originally relocated to Colorado from Oregon, six of which have now died from a range of causes. A separate cohort of 15 animals arrived from British Columbia in January 2025; seven from that group have also perished. Some of the state's surviving wolves are Colorado-born yearlings, including one from the Copper Creek Pack in Pitkin County, which was among those killed this week. Counting all causes and cohorts, wolf deaths since the program launched in 2023 — following voter passage of Proposition 114 — now stand at 20.
The livestock toll accompanying the reintroduction has drawn sharp criticism from agricultural interests. More than three dozen animals have been lost to wolf predation since April, with at least 21 of those kills occurring after July 1; CPW's confirmed depredation count since tracking began in 2024 has reached roughly 115. Ranchers argue the actual number of losses runs considerably higher, and they attribute a substantial portion of the kills in Grand and Pitkin counties specifically to the Copper Creek Pack.
Conservation organizations pushed back sharply against the agency's decision to euthanize the wolves. "Colorado can't keep killing wolves when it already has so few left and no additional reintroductions are in sight," said Samantha Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. A Colorado Wild ecologist characterized CPW's actions as a "state-sanctioned killing" and argued that ranchers should be making greater use of "tools to prevent conflict." CPW, for its part, has acknowledged that managing for "coexistence" can require lethal removal of wolves that repeatedly target livestock.
The killings are taking place as federal wolf policy is under active reconsideration. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is conducting a 90-day review to determine whether gray and Mexican wolves warrant removal from the federal Endangered Species Act's list of protected species. Legislation moving through Congress — the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which cleared the House last December — would instruct Burgum to strip gray wolves of their ESA protections, but the bill remains stalled in the Senate.
That federal framework matters because Colorado ranchers currently operate under stricter constraints than their counterparts in several neighboring states. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and portions of Oregon, Washington, and Utah all manage their wolf populations without federal restrictions, an option not available to Colorado, where ranchers face tighter limits on defending their herds. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert called the federal review order "real progress," saying that "Colorado producers should not have to watch wolves tear through their herds while Washington ties their hands."
The Senate's handling of the Pet and Livestock Protection Act and the outcome of Burgum's ESA review are the two developments most likely to determine how much flexibility Colorado ranchers and wildlife managers will have going forward.