Gray Wolf
The largest member of the canine family has an established population in Colorado for the first time since being extirpated in the early 1900s.
About This Species
Gray wolves historically inhabited most of Colorado, but were extirpated. An extirpated species is an animal that no longer exists in the wild in its historical habitat but still exists elsewhere. The last known resident wolves in Colorado were in the 1940s until the establishment of a wolf pack that migrated from Wyoming in 2019.
In 2023, CPW reintroduced 10 wolves to Grand and Summit Counties are part of the implementation of voter-approved Proposition 114.
Prior to reintroduction efforts, there were known wolves already in the state. In addition to the 10 wolves released in Grand and Summit counties between December 18-22, 2023, CPW has had confirmed or probable wolf dispersals that occurred in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015, and 2019-2021.
Colorado is part of the gray wolf’s native range, but wolves were eradicated by the 1940s. Over the past decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) restored gray wolves in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona. Individual wolves, including two wolves that have since mated and produced pups in Jackson County, have been periodically migrating into Colorado. Wolves from the south may do so someday as well.
CPW typically fields around 100 sightings each year. When confirmed sightings occur, the number of additional reports spike. However, wolf reports are typically not considered reliable without strong supporting evidence.
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Physical Characteristics
Size
Wolves are large canids, up to five feet long (14 inches of which is a bushy tail). Adult male gray wolves typically weigh between 90 and 110 pounds, and may exceed 5 feet in length from nose to tail tip. Adult females typically weigh between 80 and 90 pounds and can be 5 feet long.
Color
Despite their name, gray wolves may be white, tawny gray or black, or any combination of those colors. Approximately half of any gray wolf population is actually gray. Their coloring is pale gray, washed with buff and overlain on the back and legs with black. Sometimes their pelage (fur) is black.
Young
Pups are born with black spots on the upper outside of their tails, which may fade with age. Young wolves may resemble coyotes or some larger domestic dogs. However, wolves can be distinguished from most coyotes and dogs by their longer legs, larger feet, wider head and snout, shorter ears, narrow body and straight tail. Coyotes are 1.5 feet tall, and 4 feet long, weighing between 20-50 pounds.
Tracks
Dog and coyote paw prints can be mistaken for wolf tracks. Adult wolf prints are larger than dog and coyote prints. An average-sized wolf makes a track about 5 inches long (without claws) and 3 to 4 ½ inches wide. Coyotes are considerably smaller and narrower. Although some dog breeds can have tracks greater than 4 inches in length, in general, if a 4-inch or greater canid track is observed, the probability that it may be a wolf is increased.
Range
The gray wolf (Canis lupus) ranges across Eurasia and in North America, from the Arctic to Mexico and from coast to coast. Most dispersal into Colorado is believed to have originated from the Greater Yellowstone Area, which is part of the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population. However, it is often difficult to determine a dispersing animal’s specific point of origin with certainty as only a small portion of the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population is marked or fitted with telemetry collars.
Habitat
Sometimes called "timber wolves" (to distinguish it from the coyote, or "prairie wolf"), wolves occupy a wide range of habitats. Wolves are habitat generalists, meaning they do not have specific habitat requirements that determine where they can live. As long as prey is available, wolves can use a variety of areas.
Diet
Wolves once fed on Colorado's vast herds of bison, elk and deer, supplemented by rabbits, rodents and carrion. When market hunters overhunted the large mammals that constituted wolves' staple diet, wolves naturally turned to a new food resource in the developing frontier: livestock. Because of their depredations of domestic animals/livestock, wolves in Colorado were systematically eradicated by shooting, trapping and poisoning.
Reproduction
The wolf pack is an extended family unit that includes a dominant male and female. In each pack, there is usually only one breeding pair, preventing subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, most packs produce only one litter of four to six pups each year. A pack typically includes the breeding pair, the young wolves born that year, perhaps last year’s young and sometimes a few older wolves that may or may not be related to the breeding pair.
Wolves den in burrows in banks where the female bears six to 10 pups in late April after a nine-week gestation period. The male provides food for the nursing mother. A pair may have a hunting territory of 10 square miles.