Sign In
Donate Calendar Contact Us Accessibility Military Benefits
Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map
Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map
Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map

​​​​​​Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map​

Collared Activity Update: March 26, 2024 - April 23, 2024  (Download PDF​)

Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s ​Collared Gray Wolf Activity Map​ will help inform the public, recreationists and livesto​​​ck producers on where wolves have been in the past 30 days or so. This map will be updated with new information on a monthly basis, produced on the fourth Wednesday of every month, and will reflect data for the prior month, give or take several days. 
These maps are created using GPS collar data collected from all ​​collared wolves in Colorado.  

About the GPS collar data

  • Currently, the collars are programmed to record a position every four hours. 

  • Once four locations are recorded, the packet of four locations is then transmitted via satellite to CPW biologists. 

  • Some factors, such as dense cloud cover and closed terrain, can delay the frequency of position recording and data transmission. 

  • By looking at the data, CPW staff can learn where wolves have been, but they cannot tell where wolves are at a current point in time, nor can they predict where the wolves will go. 

  • To protect the wolves, specific GPS data will not be shared. ​


​​Notable Updates

  • ​​This map was created using GPS data from all functioning collars in Colorado.

  • ​Two of the ten collars placed on wolves translocated in December are no longer providing signals to CPW biologists. This includes the collar that failed in March and an additional collar that was partially functional in March but has since failed. The animals with the failed collars are traveling with other animals with functional collars, which currently allows CPW to monitor those animals. CPW has confirmed that the animals with the malfunctioning collars are still alive based on visual confirmation from an airplane. 

  • Movements of reintroduced wolves have been confirmed in watersheds east of the Continental Divide and onto the Front Range.

  • ​Statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: On April 18, 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service became aware of a deceased gray wolf in Larimer County, CO. As a federally listed species under the Endangered Species Act, the Service is investigating and has sent the carcass for a necropsy to determine the cause of death. Initial evidence suggests that this wolf likely died of natural causes, but a final determination will not be made until the necropsy is completed. This wolf was one of the ten recently released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in December 2023, and the Service is working cooperatively with CPW in our investigation. No additional details are available at this time. This is an active investigation and all inquiries on this topic should go to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service PIO Joseph Szuszwalak (joseph_szuszwalak@fws.gov).​​


​Learn more about living and recreating in wolf country on our website. CPW also created this hands-on resource guide to help reduce wolf depredations on livestock. 

CPW’s new Map Indicating Current Collared Wolf Activity in Colorado.

This map depicts watersheds where the collared wolves in Colorado have been for the last 29​ days. A watershed is a geographic unit that drains water into a specific waterbody. These are also known as Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC). Information is shared at the HUC 10 level. Watersheds are the appropriate mapping unit to display wolf activity information because wolves are far more likely to use geographic features to affect their distribution than they are political boundaries. The HUC 10 scale provides detailed information that can help agricultural producers be informed of the general areas where wolf activity is known to exist without being too general (i.e., as a county level map would be) and also is not so specific so as to risk the protection of individual wolves (as a finer scale HUC12 map would be). More can be learned about HUCs at https://water.usgs.gov/GIS/huc.html​.

In order for a watershed to indicate wolf activity, at least one GPS point from the wolf collars was recorded within the boundaries of the watershed. Simply because a watershed indicates wolf activity, it does not mean that a wolf or wolves are present throughout the entire watershed nor that they are currently in the watershed. ​​

CPW reserves the right to buffer maps that will be shared with the public if doing so protects wolf welfare during sensitive times of the year (e.g., mating season).

Through immigration from other states, potential collar failure or loss, and the natural reproduction of pups, the proportion of wolves with collars transmitting data will be reduced over time. Therefore, the accuracy of this map will diminish over time as the activity of uncollared wolves may not be included in it. The long-term intention is to maintain at least two collars in each pack.


Prior Collared Activity Update 

​