GRAND JUNCTION — Colorado has new wolf pups.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced at the July 17 commission meeting in Grand Junction that wolves in the state produced four litters of pups that will move it towards the state recovery plan goal of establishing a self-sustaining population as required under the voter-approved measure to reintroduce the animal.
Those packs are the Copper Creek pack in Pitkin County, One Ear pack in western Jackson County, King Mountain pack in Routt County and Three Creeks pack in Rio Blanco County.
The Copper Creek pack originated in Grand County last year. The pack’s original breeding male and female and four pups were captured in late August and early September and held at a sanctuary after repeated depredations. A fifth pup from that litter eluded capture and is still alive. The male died after being captured as the result of a gunshot wound, according to a necropsy.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis made the decision to rerelease the Copper Creek pack on private land in Pitkin County in January in defiance of the state’s wolf recovery plan that states, “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.”
After that rerelease, the Copper Creek pack’s breeding female paired with a male wolf brought to Colorado from British Columbia, the agency previously confirmed.
The Copper Creek pack had seven confirmed depredations of livestock in Grand County this spring that resulted in the state wildlife agency lethally removing a yearling member of the pack under its definition of chronic depredation.
Eric Odell, the agency’s wolf conservation program manager, said it is unknown how many wolf pups were born due to difficulty in detection of the small animals in dense cover. He said the agency is closely monitoring the den sites to get a count on the number of pups produced.
The agency has said previously new pups will not be captured and fitted with GPS collars. All 25 wolves initially released into Colorado over the past two years, four pups from the Copper Creek pack and two remaining members of the former North Park pack were fitted with the tracking collars, some of which are no longer functioning.
This image of a wolf pup born to the King Mountain pack in Routt County, Colorado, was captured by a remote camera June 22, 2025.
Odell said receiving reports of wolf sightings from the public, especially with high quality photos or video, is helpful to the agency to track the movement of the new wolves.
“This will become increasingly important as the population of uncollared wolves grows through successful restoration and natural immigration into Colorado,” Odell told commissioners.
Odell said wolves usually give birth to four to six pups, with about 50% survival of pups through the first year.
“Despite some things that you may hear, not all aspects of wolf management have been a failure,” Odell said.
Brian Dreher, the assistant director of the agency’s terrestrial branch, said the agency has — with the help of ranchers and other agencies — deployed increased staff, namely range riders, to diligently keep those wolves away from livestock to reduce conflict.
The state wildlife agency previously said it is working with British Columbia again to secure wolves for capture and release in Colorado this January. It captured and released 15 wolves from British Columbia in January, many of which have had few or no confirmed livestock depredations, the agency noted.
Odell said the agency will focus on releasing wolves in January of 2026 in the southern part of a polygon previously identified as a potential wolf release area. That indicates it would be south of this year’s releases in Pitkin and Eagle counties, in the area between Gunnison and Montrose.
Odell said the agency will communicate with those in the area of the sites before releasing wolves.
The wolf recovery plan requires a 60-mile buffer of releases from state and tribal boundaries.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado is home to 4 litters of wolf pups this year, CPW says