Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Friday met its goal of introducing 10 gray wolves to the state by the end of 2023, CPW said in a statement.
According to CPW, its team completed its agreement to capture 10 gray wolves in Oregon and then release them in the state to work toward restoring a permanent population in Colorado. So no more capture and releases are expected for the remainder of 2023.
“CPW will continue to work with more animals until up to 15 wolves have been reintroduced in Colorado through mid-March 2024,” the company said in its press release. This would fall under the agreement with Oregon for the December 2023 to March 2024 catch season.
Five Oregon gray wolves were first released in Colorado on Dec. 18 in Grand County, an occasion when Gov. Jared Polis joined CPW, marking the first time since the 1940s that there had been a reintroduction of animals on state lands.
CPW explained in its update that the next five-wolf organization was released later without the time and place being widely known for protection reasons, but it showed that this also took positions in Grand County and also in Summit County.
All 10 wolves that are now living in Colorado were yearling and adult wolves that were mature enough to hunt prey on their own — wolves that are 20 months and older.
All CPW moves fall under the Colorado Wolf Management and Restoration Plan, which was approved by voter resolution in the 2020 election as Colorado’s Proposition 114 and has become State Law 33-2-105. 8.
However, the anticipation and implementation of the gray wolf recovery program has not had much controversy in the state. The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Gunnison County Cattlemen’s Association filed a complaint with the U. S. District Court for the District of Colorado about the plan. The lawsuit addresses considerations about the potential effects of the wolves’ arrival on livestock and rural communities.
Despite Coloradans’ considerations, 10 gray wolves will continue to roam the state west of the Continental Divide as the new year approaches.
The wolves were given the following identifications for tracking, according to CPW:
According to CPW, “Note: All wolves captured, collared, and released in Colorado will use the same naming convention: the first two digits (23) will imply the year the animal was captured. The set of numbers informs biologists about the sex of the wolf (males will have a number, females will have an even number) and the order in which the collar was worn. *The suffix “O” implies that wolves came from Oregon.
Also in December, a settlement approved by a federal court mandated that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service must draft a new recovery plan for gray wolves indexed under the Endangered Species Act within two years. The plan should promote the conservation of the species.