Colorado gray wolf GPS collar data points to possible breeding pair
DENVER (KDVR) — A letter from the director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife regarding recent wolf depredations also says the agency is investigating a possible wolf den and mated pair.
Jeff Davis, CPW’s director, responded to the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association in a letter he published Tuesday. The association had written to the state decrying the recent livestock losses reported in Grand and Jackson counties and requesting that the state lethally remove two depredating wolves.
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Depredations occur when a wolf takes a livestock producer’s animal for food, essentially stealing from the business. According to Davis, these depredations may have been to support a wolf den. Wolfs begin “denning,” or establishing a home to birth and raise their pups, in the spring.
According to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, female wolves will birth their pups and remain in the den with the blind, helpless young to nurse and care for them. After about six weeks, the pups will begin to emerge with the female wolf. Between eight to 12 weeks, the pups will leave the den behind entirely.
CPW is tracking the reintroduced wolves through GPS collars that send periodic data packages to the biologists, which showed signs of possible denning.
“In early April, GPS points stopped uploading and very recently those points began to upload again. The points for this female’s collar are showing a very localized position,” Davis wrote to the Middle Park Stockgrowers. “The biological interpretation of this is that she was likely in a den during the time when connectivity with the collar was interrupted, which aligns with the expected timing of wolf reproduction.”
Davis said that if this is a den, it would be the first for the reintroduced wolves.
“We are working diligently to confirm the den, and hope to have information on this soon,” he wrote.
Because of this, CPW biologists believe the wolf responsible for repeated depredations is the male of the denning pair.
“Removing the male breeder at this point would be irresponsible management and potentially cause the den to fail, possibly resulting in the death of the presumed pups,” Davis wrote. “This is not a desirable result and I am therefore not going to take action at this time to lethally remove this animal.”
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Ranchers are legally barred from lethally deterring wolves unless CPW permits a rancher to kill a wolf following a confirmed depredation.
Davis also said that under the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan, CPW is tasked with weighing the trade-offs of competing factors, like depredations and reproduction.
“The wolf population in Colorado is far below any restoration goal,” Davis wrote. “We have the legal duty to establish a self-sustaining population of wolves while minimizing conflict risk … As the wolf population in Colorado grows, and as we get to points where we enter different management phases, the approach to lethal removals will likely become more liberal.”
Two wolf carcasses were also found this month in Colorado, including one of the reintroduced wolves. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it will complete a necropsy on the wolves and determine if they died of natural causes. The agency also said initial evidence points to the reintroduced wolf dying of natural causes.
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