Northwest Colorado News for Thursday, March 6, 2025

March 5, 2025 Shannon Lukens

By Shannon Lukens.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission got a wolf update at their monthly meeting in Denver Wednesday. The commission first approved wildlife damage claims for two ranching operations in Grand County that had multiple wolf depredations. The payout for is $343,416.27. The vote was unanimous by the commission. That is less than half of what the ranchers were claiming. Some of that is still being negotiated.

Public comment had multiple wolf advocates speaking against the payout to the ranchers, with accusations of grazing their cattle on public lands and failure to use non-lethal tactics. CPW Northwest Regional Manager Travis Black said both Grand County claims used a lot of tools for conflict minimization. This included a Range Rider, cracker shells, and foxlights. Black said after the first four yearlings were killed, CPW staff stayed out for five nights in a row helping the producer do night patrol to try to minimize the conflicts. The producer also got two livestock guardian dogs for his sheep.

“So early on, I think it was after the first couple of calves were killed, the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association received one of the grants from the Department of Agriculture to hire a range rider. So they employed that range rider pretty quickly after the first few animals were found dead. Working hand-in-hand with CPW staff, we were trying to keep them appraised of wolf locations which focused the area on where that range rider was trying to protect livestock. We provided conflict minimization tools, such as cracker shells, fox lights, things of that nature to that producer. In fact, after the first four yearlings were killed, CPW staff spent five nights in a row out there helping that producer do night patrol just to try to minimize the conflicts there. And that was early on in that process. The producer also ended up getting livestock guardian dogs for his sheep, and even though he had sheep, wolves still had an impact on those sheep. Likely they reduced the amount of impact that they had on sheep because of those dogs, so there were a lot of tools that were employed there. I hear quite often about, you know, a dead pit being there and that’s true. There was a dead pit there that likely was attracting some of those wolves. You have to keep in mind that, you know, early on in that calving season, it’s a time of year when the ground is frozen there’s snow on the ground, and they could not cover up that pit until it is thawed out enough, basically, to move dirt to cover that pit. Eventually, this producer did voluntarily cover up that pit as well. So did they use every tool at their disposal? Maybe not, but there’s certain tools that work in certain situations so they’re not always gonna work in every situation.”

CPW’s Eric O’Dell had a long presentation on getting the wolves from British Columbia to Colorado. He also thinks there are maybe 30 wolves in Colorado now, including one in Moffat County that isn’t collared. It came there on its own. And he says it’s almost breeding season.

“We started early January with about nine animals on the ground. In a matter of a week or so by releasing the 15 animals from British Columbia plus the five animals from Copper Creek, we then had 29 animals. We since discovered the DNA of another animal in Moffat County and so we continue to get reports of other animals. So it is a constant evaluation of those kind of reports. But it was a big change, right? So we’ve gone from a couple handful of animals now 29 animals, 30 animals. And we’re heading into the breeding season so we don’t know yet, and we get asked a lot if we are going to have dens yet? We don’t know. Breeding season is mid-February. They’re certainly animals that we can tell are moving around in pairs. We certainly expect there to be some reproduction and some recruitment this year. But we don’t know yet if dens are starting to be established. The females will be active outside of a den right up until denning time it won’t be until mid April, that we will have any kind of insight as to what that looks like.”

The link to the YouTube feed for the meeting is below, and the presentation starts at 6:42:00.

LINK: Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission Meeting – Day 1

The meeting ended with comments from commission members about the continued dissension among both sides of the issues. Here’s Chairman Dallas May.

“I have one more comment. Producers, especially in Middle Park, are so often demonized through this even though they were the ones that provided this ability and anybody who saw that film of that female wolf and the three pups playing in the rain puddle last fall, I think you should go back and think about that. The producers that were suffering these losses were also the ones that allowed that to happen. And I think that’s what both sides have to come together on through this. Rather than fighting each other continually, we have to get to the point these sides are working together to make this Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Plan a success and we’re well on our way to that happening, but we have to get past this point of constant contention.”

More on the Story — CPW Commission talks wolves and how “we have to get past this point of constant contention”

File Photo Courtesy Colorado Parks and Wildlife

The town of Granby is reporting a mountain lion that has been spotted in the town. Granby Police say to haze it away if you see it, and not to let a mountain lion ever become comfortable in your yard.

Hayden Town Council meets tonight. That meeting is in Town Hall at 6 p.m.

The town of Yampa is hosting the 2^nd Annual Fired-Up Salsa Contest and Loaded Nacho Night. It’s a fundraiser to support the annual 4^th of July parade and celebration in the South Routt County community. It’s at 5:30 p.m. tonight at the Ladies Aid Hall in Yampa.

A Family Reading Jamboree is from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, March 6, at Strawberry Park Elementary. Families are welcome to enjoy reading, raffles, games, pizza, and a lot more fun.