UPDATE from Travis Duncan with Colorado Parks and Wildlife:

CPW is not aware of any recent suspected or confirmed depredations at this ranch. There have been two incidents at the ranch over the past month where calves died, but district wildlife officers report there was no evidence (i.e., bite marks) to be able to confirm wolves were the cause.  The rancher had indicated a third calf was missing, but he found the calf alive on the morning of May 5.

 

It’s calving season for local mountain ranchers. That includes at the Gittleson Ranch in Jackson County, where a pack of wolves have already killed three of their head of cattle. In the past two weeks,  at least two of the newborn calves have died because of the wolves and one is missing according to Kim Gittleson.

 

 

“We know for sure that at least one of them, we can see where it was drug through the fence. The other one, we know the wolves were chasing the cows that night and ruined its lungs (a hole burst in its lungs). We’ve had wolves with our cows even with us right there. Sunday night, my husband was out there driving in the big diesel truck that makes a lot of noise, and 200 yards from him, they grabbed a calf and were facing down with the mother. And that’s the one we don’t know about yet. The mother is so wound up that we don’t know if she still has her calf or if she has it hidden somewhere and we probably won’t know until there are enough of us out there to really comb the pasture and try to find it.”

 

 

Gittleson says she and her husband, Don, are frustrated with the loss of three cows and now at least two calves, so far.

“Yep, it’s still happening and you might say we’re a bit frustrated. Everything we’ve tried, we have fladry up, the fox lights are up, we’re staying with the cows all night long. The night before that, Saturday night, I was out with the cows, I had my loudspeaker in the back of my truck and I would blare music every so often. They still came in that night. I did not see them but I heard them and I shot in the air three times and that appeared to scare them off and I don’t believe they got anything that night.”

‘And you’re allowed now to shoot in the air?’

“Yes, in the air, you just can’t shoot at them. You can’t do a projectile at them. But we can try to haze them away.”

 

There are six wolves that were born to a pair of wolves living in Jackson County. The Gittlesons and other wolf experts expect the mom has had another litter of wolf pups last month there in Jackson County. They typically will emerge from the den for the first time around Mother’s Day.

We have reached out to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for more details and have not yet heard back. We’ll update this story when we do.