By Ali Longwell | The Fence Post
Over the last month, two of Colorado’s latest gray wolf transplants were killed after crossing the border into Wyoming.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife expects these types of movements into other states from the reintroduced wolf population. The species is known for traveling long distances in search of food or mates.
However, once the wolves leave Colorado, they lose certain protections afforded to them by both state and federal laws. But just how those protections change, and what might happen to them, depends entirely on which way they travel.
In Colorado, gray wolves are considered “state endangered” in addition to being listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act and as an experimental population under a special rule from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The endangered status makes it illegal to kill or harass the animals, except for with federal permission or circumstances allowed under the special rule.
Wolves traveling north into Wyoming enter a state where they were removed from the federal Endangered Species Act in 2017 after restoration efforts in several Northern Rocky Mountain states. Wolf populations grew in this region following reintroduction efforts by the federal government in Yellowstone National Park and Idaho.
Today, the majority of Wyoming falls under Wyoming Game and Fish Department predator control rules. In this area — which includes around 85% of the state including the portion bordering Colorado — wolves can be killed at any time without a license.
It is illegal to hunt wolves in the state’s two national parks, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. However, in a small portion of the state’s northwest corner, the Wyoming wildlife agency classifies wolves as a “trophy game animal,” offering managed hunting options. It offers seasonal hunting in a small western region of the state.
Rachael Gonzales, Parks and Wildlife’s northwest region public information officer, said that due to the difference in management and federal listing, the Colorado agency does not have any agreement with Wyoming regarding the recapture of Colorado’s wolves.
Wyoming state law protects the identity of hunters who kill wolves legally in the state. The agency only releases aggregate data about how wolves are killed; not individual details.