COLORADO PARKS & WILDLIFE

Colorado Parks and Wildlife releases Draft Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan; public can provide feedback at upcoming meetings and through online comment form

• Develop a plan to restore and manage gray wolves in Colorado;
• Take necessary steps to begin reintroduction no later than Dec. 31, 2023, on designated lands west of the Continental Divide; and
• Pay fair compensation for livestock losses caused by gray wolves

• CPW will reintroduce 30 to 50 wolves in total over the next 3 - 5 years (10-15 animals per year).
• Wolves will likely be sourced from populations in the northern Rockies in cooperation with the respective state wildlife agencies. 
• Captured wolves will be reintroduced onto state and cooperating private lands in select areas west of the Continental Divide with a 60-mile buffer from neighboring states.

• Wolves are both Federally and State protected as an Endangered Species in Colorado. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is engaged in a process to designate the Colorado wolf population as Experimental under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. As wolf populations grow, Colorado’s gray wolf protection status may be downlisted from a State Endangered species to a State Threatened species. Wolves would no longer be included on the Colorado State Threatened and Endangered Species List should the population be recovered to 150 wolves for 2 successive years or 200 wolves with no time constraint.

• CPW will place GPS monitoring collars on reintroduced wolves, and monitor wolf packs as they develop in the coming years.
• The draft plan describes an impact-based management philosophy. Wolves will have both positive and negative impacts in the state. If wolves are causing a negative impact, CPW will utilize multiple management tools including education, nonlethal tools, and in rare cases involving wolf depredation lethal management  to resolve the problem.
• Wolves will be managed within Colorado using a phased approach, based on the number of animals present in the state.
• The plan does not permit a regulated wolf hunt.

• CPW’s Draft Conflict Minimization Program may provide temporary conflict minimization materials to livestock owners which include turbo fladry, shell-crackers, propane cannons and fox lights to prevent depredation incidents.
• Wolf-livestock conflicts will be addressed on a case-by-case basis using a combination of appropriate management tools, including education, non-lethal conflict minimization techniques, damage payments and lethal take of wolves in rare cases specifically involving depredation.
• If a depredation incident is confirmed by CPW, livestock owners can be reimbursed the fair market value of the animal, up to $8,000. The plan allows for reimbursement of veterinarian costs for the treatment of injured livestock or guard/herding animals.
• In large open range settings, livestock owners will have the option of compensation for some production losses or indirect costs like decreased conception rates and other indirect losses on a case-by-case basis.
• By statute, wolf depredation reimbursements will not be sourced from hunting and fishing license fees or associated federal grants.