Endangered gray wolves have baby after controversial reintroduction to Colorado

A gray wolf pup is the latest addition to the endangered — but growing — Colorado gray wolf population, Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced on June 20.

In December 2023, experts with the state department introduced 10 gray wolves from Oregon to Colorado, where the species had been mostly absent for years. The initiative, backed by voters, was the country’s “most ambitious wolf reintroduction effort” in nearly 30 years, the Associated Press reported.

Using GPS collar data, biologists tracked the wolves. In early April, one female’s data dropped off, then resumed uploading later in the month, indicating that she may be denning.

Denning is a motherly hibernation pregnant wolves begin days before giving birth.

By watching the area closely ever since, Colorado experts were able to confirm the existence of one wolf pup in Grand County, but it’s likely there are more as wolves typically birth four to six pups in a litter.

“We are continuing to actively monitor this area while exercising extreme caution to avoid inadvertently disturbing the adult wolves, this pup, or other pups,” CPW Wildlife Biologist Brenna Cassidy said in the release.

Now that the reintroduced wolves have reproduced, they are officially considered a pack. Experts are calling the pack Copper Creek Pack.

But not everyone in Colorado is excited that the wolves are back. Many ranchers were concerned for their livestock before the reintroduction, filing a lawsuit arguing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to assess the costs to ranchers wolf attacks would have, the AP reported.

But voters were on the side of helping the endangered species rebound, moving to reverse the impacts of government-sanctioned wolf extermination programs of the 1930s that depleted the wolves in Colorado and elsewhere. And CPW has plans to introduce more wolves in the future.

“We will continue our plan to release animals for the next few seasons in order to ensure that wolves don’t just survive but thrive in Colorado as they did a century ago,” CPW Director Jeff Davis said in a December news release.

This story was originally published June 21, 2024 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Endangered gray wolves have baby after controversial reintroduction to Colorado."