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Colorado Ranch Hand Reportedly Shoots Wolf While Protecting Calves
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Approved, State, The Coloradoan

Colorado Ranch Hand Reportedly Shoots Wolf While Protecting Calves

By: Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan A ranch owner says her ranch hand shot and killed the King Mountain wolf pack mother, the Coloradoan has confirmed. The death will test the state's laws protecting the endangered predator, which only allows for the legal killing of wolves under certain situations. Ranch owner Susan Nottingham first confirmed the killing of the wolf to the Coloradoan in an interview June 1. The wolf was killed March 10 on the Nottingham Ranch, which spans 20,000 acres in northern Eagle and southern Routt counties. Colorado Parks and Wildlife, in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is leading an investigation into the wolf death and has not yet released details of the case. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE COLORADOAN
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Copper Creek Wolves Drive Majority Of Colorado Livestock Losses
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Copper Creek Wolves Drive Majority Of Colorado Livestock Losses

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan Beef, and mutton, are often what's for dinner for one Colorado wolfpack that has racked up a $700,000 tab, according to a review by the Coloradoan. The Copper Creek pack has been implicated in more than 60% of the state's confirmed depredations — 49 of 78 —since Colorado began reintroducing wolves in December 2023, a review of Colorado Parks and Wildlife's confirmed depredations records and ranchers' depredation claim filings shows. Those losses led to payouts by the state exceeding $700,000. That is greater than 40% of the total amount Colorado has paid for wolf depredations in that time. In total, the agency awarded ranchers more than $1.6 million in wolf depredation claims combined in 2024 and 2025. That's more than doub...
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Gas Turbines Ramp Up As Colorado Joins Regional Grid System
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Gas Turbines Ramp Up As Colorado Joins Regional Grid System

By Rebecca Powell | The Coloradoan In the month since Platte River Power Authority joined a regional energy market, its combustion gas turbines have been operating at a higher level and the Craig 1 unit that was supposed to have been retired instead began burning coal again. The combustion turbines have been operating at a "much higher capacity factor" and prices have been volatile, Melie Vincent, PRPA's chief power supply officer, told the board of directors on April 30. "A lot of this is just SPP operators trying to figure out the western side," Vincent said, referring to the Southwest Power Pool regional transmission organization's expansion into the western United States with nine utilities in Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah and Wyo...
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Wolf Claims to Exceed Annual State Allocation Topping One Million Dollars
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Wolf Claims to Exceed Annual State Allocation Topping One Million Dollars

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan More than $700,000 in wolf depredation claims by ranchers in 2025 have been recommended for approval by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, doubling the amount budgeted by the state. Six claims totaling $706,460.91 were listed among agenda items to be heard at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting March 5 in Denver. Claims listed under the consent agenda can be removed for discussion at another meeting, approved or denied by vote of the commission, which has final say. The agenda also shows three claims totaling $53,611.71 that CPW is recommending be denied. The awarded claims are only a partial list of total claims statewide in 2025. Total compensation to ranchers for wolf depredations will exceed $1 million, an amount&...
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Feds threaten takeover of Colorado wolf management amid compliance dispute
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Feds threaten takeover of Colorado wolf management amid compliance dispute

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan Colorado is now facing a potential federal takeover of its wolf reintroduction program. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will take over management of wolves in Colorado unless the state adequately addresses compliance issues under its memorandum of agreement with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, according to a letter sent from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik to Lauren Clellan, Colorado Parks and Wildlife acting director. The letter, dated Dec. 18 and obtained by the Coloradoan through an open records request, states if a complete report of all gray wolf conservation and management activities that occurred from Dec. 12, 2023, to the present is not supplied within 60 days of the letter, the U.S. Fish and Wildlif...
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Fort Collins Charter School Secures $1.8M Federal Grant for Expansion
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The Coloradoan, Approved, Local

Fort Collins Charter School Secures $1.8M Federal Grant for Expansion

By: Kelly Lyell | The Coloradoan Liberty Common School has been awarded a federal grant of nearly $1.8 million in support of the continued construction of its new junior high school campus, a school spokesperson said in a news release. Liberty Common opened the new junior high school for seventh and eighth graders this fall in one of two adjacent commercial buildings at 1825 Sharp Point Drive in east Fort Collins. The junior high school will expand into the second building and new facilities connecting the two for the 2026-27 school year, co-founder and Headmaster Bob Schaffer said in August while leading a Coloradoan reporter in a tour of the first of two phases of planned renovations. The second phase is underway and will include a gymnasium, locker rooms...
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Parental Rights Take Center Stage in Poudre School Board Election
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The Coloradoan, Approved, Local

Parental Rights Take Center Stage in Poudre School Board Election

By: Kelly Lyell and Sarah Kyle | The Coloradoan As you weigh which Poudre School District Board of Education candidates will get your vote this election, you might be wondering where each candidate stands on parental rights — and how they would define that term. The Coloradoan sent identical questionnaires to all candidates running for seats on local school district boards of education in the Nov. 4, 2025, election.More: Are you ready for the 2025 election? Your guide to Larimer County-area candidates, issues Below are their answers to this question: How do you define parental rights as it pertains to public education? What level of input should parents/guardians have in curriculum selection and content? Note: Candidate responses were reviewed and, in some cases, lightly e...
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Colorado Ranchers Say Wolf Plan Built on Lies and Broken Promises
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State, Approved, The Coloradoan

Colorado Ranchers Say Wolf Plan Built on Lies and Broken Promises

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan PITKIN COUNTY — Distrust of Colorado Parks and Wildlife's implementation of the wolf recovery plan runs as deep as the Capital and Sopris creek drainages where longtime ranching neighbors Mike Cerveny and Brad Day run around 700 cattle combined. The two buddies from Wisconsin moved to the stunning Roaring Fork Valley about 30 years ago and have been steadily building their herds on leased ranches, unable to buy their own property due to the high cost of land 20 miles from ritzy Aspen. They admit there are plenty of challenges ranching among multimillion dollar homes steadily squeezing the ranches they lease. But the latest challenge is a gut punch that staggered the steady ranchers because it happened so quickly, secretly in conjunction with ...
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Secret call reveals top-down tampering in Colorado wolf probe
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The Coloradoan, Approved, State

Secret call reveals top-down tampering in Colorado wolf probe

By Miles Blumhardt | Coloradoan A secretly recorded cellphone conversation between ranchers and a Colorado Parks and Wildlife wolf depredation investigator exposed how agency investigations receive top-down influence to alter the number of confirmed wolf depredations. The Coloradoan on July 20 was provided a copy of the nearly 20-minute recording by Merrilee Ellis of Coberly Creek Ranch that included a conversation between her husband, Mike Neelis; son-in-law, Adam Edwards; and state wildlife damage specialist Rhea Ebel-Childs on April 23. Ellis believes the recorded conversation was pivotal in the ranch winning a wolf depredation compensation claim that Colorado Parks and Wildlife had initially denied. The conversation centered around a wolf kill investigation on the southern ...
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Citations soar after first 3 months of Colorado banning hand-held devices while driving
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Approved, State, The Coloradoan

Citations soar after first 3 months of Colorado banning hand-held devices while driving

By Miles Blumhardt | The Coloradoan How are we doing, Colorado, now that it's illegal to hold your cellphone in your hand while driving? Since the state passed a law to ban hand-held mobile devices while driving and it went into effect Jan. 1, Colorado State Patrol has had its hands full with the new law. Colorado State Patrol has issued 94 citations to Colorado drivers who were using their cellphones or mobile devices while behind the wheel, more than half of the total number of citations issued in all of 2024, according to a Colorado Department of Transportation news release. The number accounts for a 135% increase in citations compared to the same time period last year. READ FULL ARTICLE ON THE COLORADOAN
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