CPW Confirmation of New Wolf Pups Raises Alarms in Colorado Ranch Country

By Heather Willard | KDVR Fox31

DENVER (KDVR) — State biologists shared a minimum count of pups for one of the newly-named packs in Colorado, marking the third pack to have confirmed pups after reintroduction.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced Wednesday night that the One Ear Pack in Jackson County has a minimum of six pups, and shared video of the pups playing in a field. The video is linked in the video player above. Earlier this month, CPW shared footage from a game camera showing three wolf pups playing in a Routt County clearing.

The news comes on the heels of the agency announcing it had named three packs this year after more wolves were reintroduced to the state from Canada. The other named packs in Colorado are the Copper Creek Pack, which was established in 2024 and is located in Pitkin County, and is now the focus of a lethal removal effort by CPW; the King Mountain Pack in Routt County; and the Three Creeks Pack in Rio Blanco County.

“We know that there are at least six pups in the One Ear Pack but there is a possibility that there were additional pups we did not see,” said Eric Odell, wolf conservation program manager, in CPW’s Wednesday announcement. “However, detection of pups early on is inherently low due to a number of factors including their size, use of densely covered homesites, and time potentially underground.”

In June last year, CPW biologists announced that they had seen a gray wolf pup — believed to be the first seen that was born to reintroduced wolves. Biologists say that typically, wolves have four to six pups in each litter.

CPW noted Wednesday that pup survival in the wild “varies widely by location,” but said rough survival rates for the first year are between 50-60%.

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