CPW says third wolf released under Colorado's reintroduction plan is dead

One of Colorado's first 10 wolves released in December under the voter-approved wolf reintroduction plan has died, Department of Conservation officials said Thursday.

The male gray wolf's collar emitted a “death signal” on Monday, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed the wolf's death on Tuesday, according to a press release the agency sent two days later.

“While this is sad news, the expected mortality rate is taken into account when planning these recovery efforts. And as with all wildlife, some mortality rate in wolves is to be expected both during recovery efforts and in the long term,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said in the press release.

The news comes just days after the state agency announced that the adult male of the six-strong Copper Creek pack died four days after the pack was captured by wildlife biologists, and that his death was caused by injuries to his hind legs unrelated to capture. The adult female and four cubs are now in an unspecified temporary enclosure and are being fed carnivore logs, roadkill carcasses and other ungulates.

The first of the 10 relocated wolves to die was also a male, believed to have been killed by a mountain lion, CPW said. He was found dead in Larimer County in April with stab wounds to his skull.

The Copper Creek pack was captured over the past two weeks after it had been scavenging on cattle and sheep in Grand County. CPW said the operation involved the use of foothold traps. The adult male had “deep puncture wounds” on its hind legs and the wolf's body weight was nearly 30% less than when it was released in December, when it weighed 104 pounds. It died despite receiving antibiotics for an infection, CPW said.

The agency did not provide any information about the cause of the latest wolf death.

The first five wolves relocated to Colorado were released on state land in Grand County north of Interstate 70 on December 18. Another five were released on December 23 in Grand and Summit counties, also north of I-70.

The state's nearly 300-page reintroduction plan calls for releasing a total of 30 to 50 wolves over three to five years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it plans to capture 10 to 15 wild wolves per year by trapping, tranquilizing or netting in the fall or winter and release them in Colorado from December to March.

Colorado voters narrowly approved a wolf reintroduction plan, called Proposition 114, in November 2020. The ballot proposal, which was passed mostly by urban voters, directed state wildlife agencies to begin reintroducing gray wolves by the end of 2023.