Colorado voters approved the reintroduction of wolves to the state in 2020 — with a deadline to bring the animals here by the end of 2023.
But wildlife officials have had a hard time finding wolves that are both suitable and available for reintroduction in Colorado — until now.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced late last week that the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife has agreed to help provide as many as 10 gray wolves for the reintroduction effort.
CPW plans to work with state biologists to capture the wolves in Oregon and relocate them to Colorado’s Western Slope between December and March.
Matt Yamashita, a CPW wildlife manager based in Glenwood Springs, said the agency hopes to release some of the wolves by the end of this year, but weather and other factors could slow the process down. The agency wants to ensure the wolves it selects will survive the relocation and stay alive in their new home.
“We're going to begin some of our capture operations up there in December, under the assumption that we will have some adequate weather conditions,” he said. “You know, if conditions are extremely hot and dry, it'll complicate our efforts to successfully capture those animals and bring them down to Colorado safely.”
According to Yamashita, cooler weather is better for the animals’ health.
Yamashita expects that the first batch of wolves will be released on state and private land, most likely in Eagle, Summit and Grand counties.
State wildlife officials are still working to identify the exact release locations; they’re looking for places where there’s minimal human activity and the wolves will have easy access to prey.
They’re unlikely to release wolves in communities such as the Roaring Fork Valley because it's heavily populated and there’s a lot of development, but that doesn’t mean they won’t end up here.
“Wolves are a species that like to travel,” Yamashita said. “So where we release them, they're going to go where they want to go and they're going to kind of define their own boundaries and kind of create their own subset of suitable habitat.”
In addition to Oregon, CPW is also looking at a few other places to get gray wolves in the region.
The agency aims to release between 10 and 15 wolves in its first year of reintroduction.
The final draft of the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan was completed this spring and can be viewed on the CPW website.
