By Lindy Browning | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain voice
It only took six weeks in 2025 for the first confirmed wolf livestock depredation to be reported, this one from Jackson County.
A rancher has reported that a cow, which was due to calve within the month, was killed by an uncollared wolf in Jackson County, approximately 10 miles south of the Wyoming border. The name of the rancher is not being disclosed for privacy reasons.
First reported by Shannon Lukens of Steamboat Radio, the rancher said that CPW has been out and confirmed that his cow was indeed killed by a wolf.
According to the rancher, who to his misfortune had been a victim of wolf depredation in 2024 and who had his dog killed by a wolf 30 feet from his backdoor, went out to feed his cows on Feb. 4, and all his cows were healthy and accounted for.
The next day, he went out to find one of his breeding cows had been killed, along with the calf she carried.
Upon finding his deceased cow, he saw that she had been attacked and started taking pictures that he knew he would need for evidentiary value. He called his local Colorado Parks and Wildlife office and reported the incident.
According to the rancher, CPW came out to his ranch on Friday, Feb. 14, and confirmed that the cow was killed by a wolf attack.
“The depredation is believed to have been committed by a wolf that is not part of the Colorado reintroduction effort and is not collared in the North Park area. CPW was able to reach this conclusion as no collared wolf data are present in that area,” read the Feb. 15 press release from CPW.
According to the press release, CPW has functioning GPS collars on all reintroduced wolves and two known wolves from a breeding pair that moved into the state from Wyoming in 2021.
The uncollared fifth pup from the former Copper Creek Pack was confirmed to be in another location of the state at the time.
The recently announced presence of a wolf in northwest Moffat County is also not believed to be involved in this depredation. The origin of the animal is unknown. According to CPW, this particular wolf could have drifted down from Wyoming.
If CPW is claiming that the wolf involved in the attack on Feb.5 and the wolf that was seen west of Craig are not wolves that were imported, the inference can be drawn that wolves are migrating into Colorado on their own.
CPW relies on sightings from the public to determine if other wolves are being seen on the landscape that has moved in from other states. According to CPW, this wolf movement is normal and expected.
The irony in the timing between the report of the attack on Feb 5, and the response on the 14th, is that in CPW mitigation protocols, CPW stresses the importance of carcass removal as a way to deter wolves from predation of livestock.
The irony was not lost on Jeff Tonder when he said in a social media post, “(They) preach carcass management. Did it take 10 days to get someone out there to determine the cause of death? Who and how is a kill site supposed to be managed to preserve the evidence? What happens if one is killed on summer range?”
Tonders’ question echoes questions that RMV hears at every meeting. Many of the attendees at those meetings have said they don’t believe that CPW has the staffing, the funding or the foresight to deal with wolf introduction at the current time.
“We are living a new life. Everything that we find dead, we call CPW,” said the Jackson County rancher. He also said that he has been seeing wolf tracks around the ranch recently, so he knew they were at risk for another year of impacts to their ranching operations.
Admitting that CPW is not always aware of wolves drifting into Colorado, the press release noted, “When it is known, CPW field staff inform local area producers when wolves are spending time in an area and work to establish site assessments to identify and deploy deterrence measures. Wolves without collars make this challenging, and relying on signs (scat, prints, etc.) becomes more important.”
“So I know they’re around. We’ve seen the uncollared wolves before. In the back, we found a collar and a tag, just on the northwest end of the ranch, a wolf collar, so we’ve known they’ve been around. Again, I’m not sure why we’re spending money reintroducing wolves when they’re already here,” he lamented.
Some people wonder if CPW knows how many wolves are already in Colorado, and if they are taking that number into account as they plan for the 2026 capture and release operation.