The January map also shows broader movements than the previous month<\/a> throughout the southwest, with activity noted in watersheds crossing Mesa, Delta, Gunnison, Saguache, Rio Grande, Conejos, Archuleta, Hinsdale, San Juan, La Plata, San Miguel and Montrose counties.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parks and Wildlife reported that \u201cone wolf moved rapidly through several watersheds near tribal lands in Colorado,\u201d adding that it \u201chas consistently shown broad movement but has not localized in any particular region.\u201d<\/p>\n While Parks and Wildlife has an agreement with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe<\/a> to guide wolf activity and management in the tribe\u2019s southwest lands, the state agency said it is still working to finalize a similar agreement with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. The agreements are meant to outline how the agencies will collaborate, communicate and share resources within reservations and the Brunot Treaty Area, which spans 3.7 million acres in the San Juan Mountains.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n This type of broad movement is expected from lone wolves as they search for mates, food sources and quality habitat. At a Jan. 8 Joint Budget Committee meeting<\/a>, Reid DeWalt, deputy director of Parks and Wildlife, told lawmakers that as these wolves settle down, movements will become more predictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe program becomes much more predictable when wolves pair and they get into a den site. They will defend that den site and that territory, and they\u2019ll stay put,\u201d he said. \u201cThat makes the program much easier to implement. We can assign those range riders, put those nonlethal techniques (in place), and the predictability goes very high.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite continued activity in watersheds brushing up to several Front Range counties, including Boulder and Larimer counties, in January, Parks and Wildlife maintains that \u201cno wolves have crossed I-25 or spent time near urban centers.\u201d<\/p>\n If a watershed is highlighted, it means that at least one GPS point from one wolf was recorded in that watershed during the 30 day period. GPS points are recorded roughly every four hours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n News you can trust. Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss a beat\u2014sign up at PostIndependent.com\/newsletter<\/p>\n January brought significant news for Colorado\u2019s burgeoning wolf population.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Jan. 16, a female gray wolf died<\/a> \u2014 the seventh wolf to die from the 15 brought from British Columbia in January 2025, and the 12th death overall in the state\u2019s wolf program.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the death is still under investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ray Aberle, Parks and Wildlife\u2019s private lands program manager, told lawmakers at a SMART Act hearing for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources on Friday, Jan. 23, that the death occurred in Rio Blanco County.<\/p>\n These mortalities will become more impactful to the state\u2019s wolf population following Parks and Wildlife\u2019s January announcement that it would not release any more wolves this winter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The decision followed federal interference in the program, which barred it from returning to British Columbia for more wolves this winter and left Parks and Wildlife with limited time to secure another source. The agency was unable to do so, forcing a pause in releases that producers, lawmakers and Western Slope communities have been requesting for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Jan. 8 legislative hearing, Laura Clellan, the acting director of Parks and Wildlife, told lawmakers, \u201cthere\u2019s not a current census or full wolf counts in the state,\u201d adding that a minimum count will come in its annual wolf report<\/a> published each spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is known is that of the 25 adult wolves that Parks and Wildlife released in the first two years of reintroduction, 14 are still alive. It is also possible that there are wolves that have entered the state naturally.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the five Copper Creek pups born in 2024, four are still alive. One was killed by Parks and Wildlife<\/a> due to chronic depredation in May. A second of this litter was shot during an attempted lethal removal operation, but with the animal\u2019s body never found, the state wildlife agency has not reported it as dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the four packs established in 2025, the agency released minimum pup counts for two: at least four in the King Mountain Pack<\/a> and at least six in the One Ear Pack<\/a>. A typical den contains four to six pups, but survival in the first year can be low.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the first two years of Colorado\u2019s wolf restoration, some reintroduced wolves have begun to settle into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-437469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769717050_137_wolf-map-gif.gif\")
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