By Stephanie Butzer , Colette Bordelon | Denver7
Denver7 listened into Monday's special CPW Commission meeting about the wolf pack's recent depredations and future.
The Copper Creek Pack in Pitkin County was in the spotlight during a special meeting of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) Commission on Monday afternoon, where the commission solidified its decision not to direct CPW to take any action on the wolf pack for now, saying it is outside the commission’s responsibilities.
The CPW Commission held the special meeting virtually, which began around 12:30 p.m. and lasted for about two hours. Public comment was not included in the agenda, something producers who spoke with Denver7 felt was lacking from the conversation.
New CPW Commission Chair Richard Reading said the commission, public and ranchers all have an interest in learning more about this specific pack and recent depredations in Pitkin County. He added that Monday’s meeting was purely “informational” and he would not support any commission vote on Monday that attempted to direct CPW to take any specific action, adding that it is “not really our role” as a commission.
“The commission’s role, in my opinion, is to create policies, and the division’s role is to implement them,” Reading said. “The wolf plan and regulations the commission passed two years ago to implement the plan clearly indicate that the commission has tasked the division (CPW) with making removal decisions. The commission simply isn’t in a position to make such decisions, because they require a complete understanding of the facts on the ground, which we usually do not have.”
While no specific decision was made about the future of the Copper Creek Pack, CPW’s Area Wildlife Manager Matt Yamashita and Deputy Regional Manager Garrett Watson both provided updates on that pack, which was followed by a lengthy question-and-answer session about continuing the wolf reintroduction program and protecting ranchers’ livelihoods.
A brief history of the Copper Creek Pack
The Copper Creek Pack first came to be in June 2024, when CPW biologists confirmed that they had spotted a wolf pup at a den site in Grand County. The two adults had been translocated to Colorado from Oregon in December 2023. It was the first confirmed wolf pack in the state since the reintroduction in December 2023 and was made up of two adults and five pups. About two months after the pups were first spotted, a man and his son captured video of some of the pack members.
In August 2024, CPW announced that it had started an operation to capture the entire pack and relocate them, noting that the animals were behind multiple depredations in the area. This was something livestock producers had been requesting. In September, six members of the pack were captured and brought to a large, secure and undisclosed enclosure where biologists would monitor them with limited human interaction. The adult male, which was found in poor condition, died a few days later and a necropsy later confirmed it had been shot, which led to its death, prompting a federal investigation into the illegal kill. The fifth pup was never captured.
Ranchers brought a petition forward in late September with a list of demands that needed to be met before the next round of wolf releases in the state, including the re-release of the Copper Creek Pack. In December, CPW recommended that the CPW Commission deny the petition, saying all of those seven items had already been addressed. On Jan. 8, the CPW Commission voted 10-1 to deny the livestock producers’ petition. About 10 days later, CPW released 15 wolves from British Columbia, as well as the five members of the Copper Creek Pack, into Pitkin and Eagle counties. All had GPS collars.
Producers in Grand County faced a number of challenges related to the Copper Creek Pack in 2024. Tim Ritschard, the president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, said it makes him “sick” to think of producers in Pitkin County experiencing the same issues.
“We’ve been in constant contact with those guys, saying, you know, ‘This is what you need to expect. This is what you need to pay attention to,'” said Ritschard. “We went through this, and so, we’re trying to help them as much as we can.”
At that time of the re-release, the pack was made up of an adult female, three yearling males and one yearling female, CPW said. In February, an adult male wolf that was translocated from British Columbia in January joined the pack, Yamashita said.
CPW officials shot and killed one of the yearling male wolves in the pack in May after a series of attacks on livestock in Pitkin County. The ranchers who were impacted had “implemented all reasonable non-lethal deterrence measures,” CPW said, so lethal removal of that wolf was “authorized and appropriate.”
Concerns about the pack arose because ranchers said the wolves were simply captured and then re-released to become another ranchers’ problem, as depredations by the pack continued. Denver7 heard from multiple livestock producers, who cited the wolf management plan, which reads: “The translocation of depredating wolves to a different part of the state will not be considered, as this is viewed as translocating the problem along with the wolves.”
In a statement regarding the capture of the Copper Creek Pack, CPW Director Jeff Davis said “the plan also calls for flexibility and it may not at times account for every unique situation the agency and our experts encounter. This spring, after a pair of wolves established a den in Middle Park, the male adult wolf was involved in multiple depredations. Removing the male at that time, while he was the sole source of food and the female was denning, would likely have been fatal to the pups and counter to the restoration mandate.”
Last month, CPW said it confirmed new wolf pups as it continued to monitor four den sites, including within the Copper Creek Pack. However, the exact number of pups at any of the den sites is not yet known, Watson said.
CPW Commission meeting: Livestock producers are “trying to hang onto hope”
“Colorado’s wolf restoration program is challenging and historic, and it takes trust and partnerships to succeed for everyone,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said at the start of Monday’s meeting. “We are a learning organization and continue to adapt and learn as we move forward with this program. We must continue to invest in training, resources, tools, partnership and our staff.”
He said Monday’s special meeting was called because a motion was announced, and then withdrawn, to capture and remove the entire Copper Creek Pack. Davis said he did not believe that was necessary as of now.
“We should not be indeterminately removing more wolves than we need to in order to address the wolf conflicts, as this runs contrary to the ESA and such repeated overuse of the removal authority could risk the continued application of the ESA 10(j) management flexibility that we currently have,” he said.