14-06-2025
Wolf pups sighted by Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff, agency confirms
Colorado wildlife officials have sighted wolf pups.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife is monitoring four wolf den sites, spokesperson Travis Duncan told the Coloradoan. The Coloradoan asked where wolf pups were sighted, but Duncan did not include that information.
"CPW staff have begun to get minimum counts of pups by both direct observations and indirect methods," Duncan said in an email. "It is important to note that sighting numbers (especially from early season sightings) are not a guaranteed number of animals since certainty in detection is low, based on continued denning, moving to rendezvous sites and being in varied habitat."
Five of the 15 wolves captured in British Columbia and released in Colorado in January have died in less than six months after the latest wolf death in the northwest part of the state. The survival rate of 67% falls below the survival rate of 70% outlined in the state's wolf recovery plan. Of the wolves that have died, three were males and two were females.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife recently confirmed four wolf attacks on livestock in nine days in Pitkin County in May, prompting the agency to lethally remove a member of the Copper Creek pack. The agency deemed three subsequent livestock deaths on the same ranches "inconclusive."
The confirmed depredation spree took place on three ranches approximately 14 miles apart, including one Pitkin County rancher Tom Harrington previously said he was told houses a wolf den with a new litter of pups. One of Harrington's calves was killed May 23 and was among the confirmed wolf kills.
Ranchers claim the parents of the litter are the breeding female of the Copper Creek pack and a male from British Columbia.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff sight wolf pups, monitor dens
