{"id":15620,"date":"2025-11-18T10:25:53","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-running-out-of-options-to-source-wolves-after-washington-rejects-request\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:34:31","slug":"colorado-running-out-of-options-to-source-wolves-after-washington-rejects-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-running-out-of-options-to-source-wolves-after-washington-rejects-request\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado running out of options to source wolves after Washington rejects request"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A relocated gray wolf stands outside its crate for a brief moment at an undisclosed Colorado release site on Jan. 14. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With the third winter \u201crelease season\u201d in Colorado\u2019s gray wolf reintroduction plan just weeks away, state wildlife officials are scrambling to find a source for additional relocated wolves.<\/p>\n

A deal to source up to 15 animals from British Columbia is in doubt after the federal government, under pressure from livestock groups and conservative activists, ordered Colorado Parks and Wildlife not to import Canadian wolves. Officials in the Republican-controlled states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, home to large and well-established wolf populations, have made it clear that they won\u2019t help Colorado\u2019s restoration efforts.<\/p>\n

And one of CPW\u2019s few remaining options was taken off the table Saturday when its request to capture and relocate wolves from Washington was rejected by wildlife commissioners there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly heard loud and clear from Washingtonians this morning, (on) all different sides of the aisle, saying it\u2019s just not the time for us to support this,\u201d said Lorna Smith, a conservation advocate and member of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s restoration plan calls for annual releases of 10 to 15 relocated wolves for the program\u2019s first three to five years, with an initial target population of 50 individuals. CPW captured and relocated 10 wolves from Oregon in December 2023 and another 15 from Canada in January 2025.<\/p>\n

In an Oct. 28 letter to Washington wildlife officials, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote that while the state\u2019s goal is to secure up to 15 wolves again this winter, \u201ceven 5-7 would be extremely helpful towards successful species recovery.\u201d CPW Director Jeff Davis, speaking to the commission in Washington on Saturday, reiterated that Colorado would cover the costs of capture and relocation operations, which could take place at any point through the end of February.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s reported wolf population declined in 2024 for the first time since confirmed wolf packs were reestablished in the state in 2008. Kelly Susewind, director of the state\u2019s Department of Fish and Wildlife, told commissioners that the decision was up to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve assessed this with our staff \u2013 we feel that biologically, we can accommodate the request, should you choose to go that way, without interfering with our recovery effort,\u201d Susewind said.<\/p>\n

But on a motion from Smith, who cited the \u201ccautionary message\u201d of Washington\u2019s declining 2024 wolf count, the commission voted 8-1 to deny Colorado\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

\u201cI myself am really torn on this issue, because of course I\u2019d love to see wolves recovered across the Rocky Mountain range, including Colorado,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBut Washington\u2019s wolves, I don\u2019t believe are in a position to assist with that at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal intervention<\/div>\n

After two years of winter releases, Colorado currently has a population of around 20 adult or yearling gray wolves, with an unknown number of new pups born to four confirmed breeding packs in 2025. Survival rates for relocated wolves have been lower in Colorado than in previous reintroduction efforts in the northern Rockies, but CPW officials say their efforts are on the right track.<\/p>\n

Livestock groups \u2013 who opposed the 2020 voter-approved ballot measure requiring wolf restoration and have sought to delay or pause its implementation ever since \u2013 scored their biggest victory to date in the fight against the program last month, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ordered CPW to halt any efforts to source wolves from outside a specified area in the northern Rockies, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern portions of Washington and Oregon.<\/p>\n

The USFWS letter claims that sourcing wolves from outside the northern Rockies is \u201cviolative\u201d of the permit the agency issued for Colorado\u2019s experimental wolf population under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. But while the state\u2019s 10(j) permit, issued in 2023, identifies northern Rockies wolves as a \u201cpreferred donor population,\u201d it does not contain any such requirement or limitation on relocation operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 10(j) rule does not mandate that Colorado\u2019s wolves come from specific states, period,\u201d Thomas Delehanty, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

While Polis wrote in his letter to Washington officials that the state \u201cdisagree(s) with the legal basis for (the USFWS) analysis,\u201d Davis said at last week\u2019s meeting of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission that CPW is \u201cworking very diligently to be consistent with the letter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it has for every year of the reintroduction program\u2019s operation, a coalition of livestock groups and rural county commissioners has submitted a petition to pause additional wolf releases until at least November 2026.<\/p>\n

In a brief statement Monday, CPW spokesperson Luke Perkins said the agency \u201ccontinues to evaluate all options to support this year\u2019s gray wolf releases in alignment with the approved Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan and the 10(j) Rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerry Cornfield of the Washington State Standard contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal government earlier this year ordered halt to Canadian wolf relocations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19753,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15620\/revisions\/19753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15620"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}