After Parks and Wildlife agents “lethally removed” the uncollared gray wolf in Routt County, agency officials were able to confirm it was the same wolf that attacked livestock in Rio Blanco County in 2025 and early 2026.

Most recently the wolf attacked two sheep in Routt County on Wednesday and Thursday, state officials said in a news release Saturday.

Agency leaders did not specify whether all of the sheep attacks were fatal, and spokesperson Luke Perkins said more information will be included in a final report published on Parks and Wildlife’s website.

Ranchers tried to deter the wolf by sending out range riders, using livestock guardian dogs and “scare devices,” having herders present with the sheep and applying for non-lethal hazing permits, state officials said.

The ranchers worked with the wildlife agency to use “all viable and reasonable non-lethal tools and techniques” to stop the attacks, Parks and Wildlife Director Laura Clellan said in a statement.

“The decision to pursue lethal actions is never an easy one, but the circumstances around this wolf’s made this a difficult but necessary decision,” Clellan said.

The wolf was originally part of the Copper Creek Pack but has not been part of the pack since September 2024, state officials said.

Colorado’s handling of gray wolf reintroduction has remained in the spotlight since voters approved the measure in 2020.

Parks and Wildlife’s reintroduction efforts are being reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which received tens of thousands of public comments about the program as of last week. One comment came from a Western Slope rancher who said her employee killed a wolf in March as it was running toward cows and calves.

The state previously rejected her application and appeal for a lethal take permit, she said.

State officials also are spending more money to reimburse ranchers for wolf attacks than is allocated to the program, approving more than $1.3 million in claims compared with $875,000 set aside as of this spring. The agency has said it has the money to pay for future claims.

Wildlife officials recorded wolf activity from along the Wyoming border near Steamboat Springs to as far south as Gunnison. The wolves’ territory extended west to near Grand Junction and east to Vail Pass.

The map released Wednesday shows watersheds where at least one wolf was active between April 21 and May 26. The map shows that the wolves’ general locations changed little from the month prior.

CPW officials said then that spring denning had begun, limiting the movement of many of the canines. Wolf pups are born in the spring, and their birth limits the travel of their pack. State biologists are monitoring dens for signs of new pups.

At least 14 pups were born last spring, CPW officials announced earlier this month. Those births brought the total known wolf population in the state to 32.

A different map released earlier this month showed that much of the wolves’ activity over the last year has been concentrated in the mountains that stretch south from Walden and Steamboat Springs to Vail. The area between Glenwood Springs and Gunnison, too, has seen a more consistent wolf presence.

The breeding male was part of the King Mountain Pack, one of four known wolf packs in the state, according to a . The pack formed last spring in Routt County.

CPW officials decided Tuesday to pause wolf capture operations while the agency evaluates the death.

This is the second confirmed wolf death in Colorado this year. The first was a female gray wolf in northwest Colorado on Jan. 16, .

State wildlife officials try to keep at least two members of each wolf pack collared as part of Colorado’s wolf reintroduction plan, according to the release. Doing so allows officials to monitor their movements across the state.

CPW staff members recently noticed that the batteries of the collars on the adult wolves in the King Mountain Pack were running low and launched the January operation to replace them.

“All wildlife capture operations come with a risk,” Laura Clellan, the agency’s acting director, said in the release. “While we meticulously prepare and take every precaution to ensure a positive outcome, there is always the possibility, even if small, that the worst happens.”

“These sorts of capture efforts are a routine part of CPW’s wolf monitoring efforts and the program has had very successful capture operations up to this point,” Clellan continued.

She said state wildlife officers and contractors carefully followed guidelines from the agency’s animal care and use committee when capturing the wolf on Jan. 28, but the animal was unresponsive after capture.

“Our team initiated resuscitation efforts but determined the animal had died,” Clellan said.

Results from lab tests and a necropsy — an animal autopsy — performed at the agency’s lab in Fort Collins were pending on Wednesday. Those results will help determine if any underlying conditions contributed to the wolf’s death, according to the release.

A female adult wolf and a pup were both successfully captured and collared during last week’s operation, according to the release. All four of the pack’s known pups were spotted in the wild.

“It����ap not yet possible to understand the long term implications to the King Mountain Pack as a result of this mortality,” Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell said in the release. “We will continue to monitor this pack to evaluate their status and how they are contributing to the establishment of a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado.”

The state now has 18 collared wolves, plus others without collars including an unknown number of pups across all the packs.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials confirmed Wednesday that they have no plans to release more wolves this season and are instead exploring options for next winter. They had been working toward an annual round of releases targeted for early 2026, around the same time of year as two earlier release cycles.

“During this intermediate time, CPW will continue to meet with producers and other stakeholders, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to explore how to maximize the restoration effort and achieve our plan of establishing a self-sustaining gray wolf population in Colorado,” CPW acting director Laura Clellan said in a news release.

CPW officials had struck a deal with Canada last year to capture up to 15 wolves from British Columbia and release them in Colorado this winter. The state captured and released 15 wolves from the Canadian province the prior winter.

But officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Trump administration said in October that bringing wolves from Canada would violate a legal agreement between CPW and the federal agency. The threat was an about-face for the federal agency, which approved the use of Canadian wolves under the Biden administration.

In a follow-up letter dated Dec. 18, the new director of the Fish and Wildlife Service demanded documents and information about the wolf releases thus far — and threatened to revoke the state’s authority to manage the species if CPW did not provide the information by Jan. 18. The state agency complied with the deadline and sent the requested information, a spokesman said, but the response had not yet been released publicly.

It’s unclear how the lack of a wolf release this year could impact the state’s goal of establishing a self-sustaining wolf population.

Critics have called the scrutiny by the Trump administration purely political.

“We are beyond disappointed that the Trump administration is using its political might to not only block CPW’s efforts to release wolves this winter but also to thwart the will of Coloradans who voted for this historic reintroduction program,” said Kaitie Schneider, the Colorado representative for wildlife advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement. “Building a self-sustaining population requires consistent efforts over multiple years, and the current population remains vulnerable. Every year matters, and any delay extends the timeline for reaching that goal.”

CPW’s announcement that there would be no releases came a day after it confirmed that another reintroduced wolf had died. The female wolf was one of the 15 captured in Canada in 2025 and was found dead Friday in northwest Colorado.

Fish and Wildlife biologists will investigate the cause of death, CPW said Tuesday.

Eleven of the 25 wolves released as part of the reintroduction effort have now died.

“When populations are small, the contributions of each individual is especially significant,” CPW Wolf Program Manager Eric Odell said in the news release announcing no releases this winter. “It is not possible to predict the impact of foregoing a third year of translocations without knowing what may occur in the coming year.

“If mortality remains high, as observed in 2025, the risk of failing to achieve a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado increases, potentially requiring additional resources to address.”

The number of wolves in Colorado is unknown as biologists attempt to count the number of surviving pups born in the past year. Nineteen collared wolves currently roam Colorado, and at least 10 pups were born this summer in the state’s four known packs.

CPW has struggled to find states or tribes in the U.S. willing to provide the wild canines for the state’s voter-mandated reintroduction program.

State wildlife officials released the first batch of wolves — 10 adults captured in Oregon — in December 2023, three years after voters approved the reintroduction ballot measure. CPW officials had first asked Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for wolves but were rejected.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington state backed out of a 2024 agreement to supply the canines after speaking with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, which has reservation land in Colorado.

CPW then turned to Canada, where it captured 15 wolves in January 2025 and rereleased them in Colorado.

When federal officials this fall signaled opposition to the use of Canadian wolves, CPW turned to the state of Washington.

While that state’s wildlife agency previously signaled a willingness to participate in Colorado’s reintroduction, its wildlife commission in November voted against allowing the relocation of its wolves. The commission cited concerns about wolf mortalities in Colorado, anti-wolf sentiment in some ranching communities here and Washington’s own declining wolf populations.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish captured gray wolf 2403 and returned the animal to Colorado.

Colorado wildlife officials decided to release the wolf in Grand County on Thursday because of the proximity to “an unpaired female gray wolf,” nearby prey populations and distance from livestock, according to the news release.

“Gray wolf 2403 has been returned to Colorado and released in a location where it can best contribute to CPW’s efforts to establish a self-sustaining wolf population while concurrently attempting to minimize potential wolf-related livestock conflicts,” acting director of CPW Laura Clellan said in the news release.

The wolf was once a member of the Copper Creek pack but departed from it this fall.

A memorandum of understanding between Colorado and Arizona, New Mexico and Utah requires that any gray wolves that leave Colorado and enter those states be returned. That was created in part to maintain the integrity of a Mexican wolf recovery program.

“We recognized during the planning process that we would need to have consideration and plans to protect the genetic integrity of the Mexican wolf recovery program, while also establishing a gray wolf population in Colorado,” CPW’s Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell said in the news release.

The monthly Colorado Parks and Wildlife map shows the broad movements of 20 gray wolves that wear GPS collars. If an area is highlighted, that means at least one wolf was in a watershed at least one time during the time frame, according to state officials.

Between Oct. 21 and Tuesday, gray wolves traveled in watersheds that reach as far north as the Wyoming state line; as far east as Boulder, Jefferson, Adams and Broomfield counties; the northern edge of Archuleta County to the south; and Meeker in Rio Blanco County to the west.

Most wolf activity appeared to take place around the Continental Divide, with wolf movement tracked near Walden, Granby, Vail, Aspen and Gunnison.

The wolves also explored near tribal lands to the south, Parks and Wildlife officials said. The state has an agreement with the Southern Ute tribe and is working to finish a similar agreement with the Ute Mountain Ute tribe to address potential impacts of wolf reintroduction.

Of Colorado’s 20 collared gray wolves, 15 were captured elsewhere and released in Colorado, three are yearlings from the Copper Creek Pack and two are adults from the One Ear Pack, according to Parks and Wildlife.

State officials will not be able to confirm whether wolf pups born this year were “successfully recruited” into Colorado’s wolf population until later this winter, Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Luke Perkins said in a statement.

Kelly Susewind, director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the request was biologically possible, but the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission rejected it, citing a lack of public support and wolves’ endangered status in the state.

Colorado turned to Washington after the newly appointed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik told Colorado Parks and Wildlife that Colorado could no longer source wolves from British Columbia. Parks and Wildlife received 15 wolves from the province in January and had signed an agreement to receive another 15 this winter.

According to Nesvik, per Colorado’s 10(j) agreement with the federal agency, the state can only source wolves from northern Rockies states where gray wolves are not listed federally as endangered. This includes Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and portions of Oregon, Washington, and Utah. While Parks and Wildlife has reported that it has a different interpretation of the agreement, it is working to comply with Nesvik’s direction and source wolves from this region. .

The state has been releasing wolves west of the Continental Divide after Colorado voters wolf reintroduction in 2020. About 30 wolves now roam mountainous regions of the state and its management plan envisions potentially 200 or more wolves in the long term.

The program has been unpopular in rural areas, where some wolves have . Now, following two winters of releases during President Joe Biden’s administration, wolf opponents appear to have found support from federal officials under President Donald Trump.

Colorado wolves must come from Northern Rockies states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik told Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis in a recent letter.

Colorado must “immediately cease and desist any and all efforts related to the capture, transport and/or release of gray wolves not obtained” from northern Rocky Mountain states, Nesvik wrote.

Most of those states — including the Yellowstone region states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where wolves from Canada were reintroduced in the 1990s — have said they don’t want to be part of Colorado’s reintroduction.

That could leave Colorado in a bind this winter. The state plans to relocate 10 to 15 wolves under an agreement with the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Luke Perkins said in a statement Friday.

The agreement was signed before the state got the Oct. 10 letter from Nesvik, according to Perkins. He said the state “continues to evaluate all options to support this year’s gray wolf releases” after getting “recent guidance” from the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Though some of Colorado’s reintroduced wolves have come from Oregon, wolves released most recently have come from British Columbia.

The issue now is whether the federal agency required that wolves must only come from northern U.S. Rocky Mountain states when it designated Colorado’s “experimental” population of reintroduced wolves.

A federal notice in 2023 referred to the northern Rockies region as merely the “preferred” and not the required source of wolves.

Defenders of Wildlife attorney Lisa Saltzburg said in a statement that the Fish and Wildlife Service was “twisting language” by saying wolves can’t come from Canada or Alaska.

People in Colorado “should be proud of their state’s leadership in conservation and coexistence, and the wolf reintroduction program illustrates those values,” Saltzburg said.

The Colorado governor’s office and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are in touch with the Interior Department about the letter and evaluating “all options” to allow wolf releases this year, Gov. Jared Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said by email.

Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Garrett Peterson, whose voicemail said he wouldn’t be available until after the government shutdown ends, didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

collected just over 25,000 signatures between the end of March and the Aug. 27 deadline to turn in petitions — about a fifth of the 124,238 the minimum required to on the 2026 ballot.

More than 400 volunteers gathered signatures, but the group did not raise enough money to hire paid petition circulators and so could not collect the required number, said Patrick Davis, a political consultant in Colorado Springs who worked on the campaign. The group raised $38,897 through July 15 but needed about $1 million to pay for the circulators, he said.

The group will decide this month whether it will try again, this time with more collaboration with livestock and hunting groups that could help bolster fundraising, Davis said.

“They’re not going to stop bringing wolves and, overnight, they’re not going to fix their management program,” he said of state wildlife officials. “So I feel like we still need to fix this program.”

The failed ballot initiative was the latest in a string of attempts to end or pause the wolf reintroduction, which the state’s ranching groups have staunchly opposed. Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners in January rejected a petition to pause the reintroduction. In August, an attempt by state lawmakers to ban CPW from using state money for this winter’s next planned releases was neutered amid opposition from the governor’s office.

For wolf advocates, the continued defeat of challenges to the program reflects the fact that the majority of Coloradans still support the reintroduction.

“You could quote that old cliche, three strikes and you’re out,” said Jim Pribyl, a former chair of the Parks and Wildlife Commission and the chair of Colorado Nature Action, a coalition of conservation organizations.

A poll set for release Monday shows a slim majority of Coloradans continue to support wolf reintroduction, despite staunch opposition in rural Colorado. The poll, conducted by Magellan Strategies between July 30 and Aug. 12, showed 53% of 1,136 registered voters support the effort.

The poll found 27% of Colorado voters strongly support wolf reintroduction, while 26% somewhat support it. About 23% strongly oppose the program, and 14% somewhat oppose reintroduction, with the remaining 10% having no opinion.

Unaffiliated voters and Democrats made up the majority of the support, while 59% of Republicans opposed the reintroduction efforts. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Those findings mirror the original split on the 2020 ballot measure that mandated the reintroduction, along with polling released in January. Colorado voters in 2020 voted 51% to 49% to bring the gray wolf back to the state, with a majority of the support coming from the urban Front Range.

“It’s the will of the people,” Pribyl said. “Obviously, there’s been controversy. But people need to be mindful of the success story of the program.”

Twenty-one collared wolves currently roam Colorado and at least 10 pups were born this summer in the state’s four packs. Soon, Pribyl said, there will be enough wolves in the state to create a stable, self-sustaining population.

Now, Davis said, those who want to halt or hinder the wolf reintroduction must focus on the federal level.

“At the state level, all options have been exhausted,” he said.

All of Colorado’s .

U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, has to ban the importation of wolves from Canada.

In January, CPW captured 15 wolves in Canada and released them in Colorado. It plans to return to the country for this winter’s reintroduction effort.

“I ask for whatever means necessary to address the situation, including seeing what the Interior (Department) might do to ban importation and to initiate a removal process,” said Hurd, who represents much of western Colorado, during .

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from the Eastern Plains’ 4th Congressional District — and formerly from the 3rd District — introduced a bill that would remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list and eliminate federal protections for the animal. The rest of Colorado’s Republican House delegation has signed on as co-sponsors.

, if passed, would have little impact on Colorado’s reintroduction program, however.

The species is protected as endangered under state law, too — and state wildlife officials already have the authority to manage wolves inside Colorado’s boundaries.

The uncollared wolf was the lone member of the Copper Creek pack that was not captured and relocated by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials in late 2024, the agency said in a released Friday.

Parks and Wildlife began investigating after the first lamb was killed near Meeker on July 20, a few days after the agency received photos confirming an uncollared gray wolf was in the area, state officials wrote.

Another lamb was killed July 22, followed by a ewe on Aug. 2, and one lamb was killed and three others injured in an Aug. 16 attack, according to Parks and Wildlife. One of the lambs injured in the Aug. 16 attack was euthanized, and a second later died from its injuries.

All of the killings happened within 7 miles across two grazing allotments, and range riders and shepherds reported hearing wolf cries in the area on several occasions.

Parks and Wildlife officials, , found the wolf Aug. 16 and shot it. But they were not able to locate the animal’s body in the following days.

DNA from blood and tissue found in the area was linked to the Copper Creek pack, and no additional livestock deaths caused by wolves have been confirmed, nor any wolves heard in the area, the agency said Friday.

This is the second wolf killed by state wildlife officials because of the repeated killing of livestock. The first wolf, also from the Copper Creek pack, was killed in May after it killed two calves and injured three calves and a cow on three ranches in Pitkin County.

Colorado law requires wildlife officials to weigh four factors when deciding whether to remove a wolf for killing livestock, including whether there are repeated incidents, if nonlethal techniques have been tried, if the attacks will continue and if something will continue to lure the wolf or wolves to the area.

Several wildlife advocacy groups released statements Friday condemning the state’s decision, linking the wolf’s death to the “mishandling” of the 2024 relocation effort.

“After surviving the brutal Rocky Mountain winter alone following his family’s relocation in 2024, this young wolf deserved a chance to reunite with his family or find a mate,” Samantha Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.

“Instead state officials shot him dead. Colorado must do better,” she continued.

Representatives with the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Rio Blanco County Stockgrower’s Association could not be reached for comment immediately.