State wildlife managers are capturing and relocating wolves that have been killing livestock in northern Colorado, state officials said Tuesday night in a surprise announcement, a setback for the state’s controversial plan to reintroduce wolves.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it has begun an operation to capture wolves from the Copper Creek pack, which feeds on cattle and sheep in Grand County near Kremmling. The pack includes two adult wolves and at least three cubs, but CPW did not say whether it would relocate all of them.

The decision to remove the wolves from the area comes after Colorado Parks & Wildlife denied a local rancher’s request to use lethal measures to protect his livestock. And it comes just nine months after 10 wolves were brought to Colorado from Oregon and released by wildlife biologists.

Wolves were introduced west of the Continental Divide in Colorado in December, after Colorado voters narrowly passed Proposition 114 in November 2020. The ballot measure, which was passed mostly by urban voters, directed state wildlife officials to reintroduce them by the end of 2023.

The Copper Creek pack is a family group formed by two of the 10 wolves that moved to Colorado late last year. The two wolves had at least three pups, who were captured on video this month playing in a rain puddle with an adult nearby.

They were the first gray wolves born since the reintroduction of these animals.

Wolves in Grand County have killed nearly two dozen cattle and sheep, and the Copper Creek pack killed at least eight sheep in one go in July on rancher Conway Ferrell’s cattle ranch west of Granby.

Some of the animals killed are listed as confirmed on the CPW website, but “there are more sheep killed that are missing and the investigation is ongoing,” said Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association.

The rancher has been asking CPW for help with the pack’s ongoing killing of his livestock since early April. Dallas May, CPW commission chairman, said the wolves were in an “untenable situation” because they were “put in the dead of winter with little to no food source” and “they were just doing what they were designed to do and that’s survive.”

In announcing the plan to capture and relocate the animals, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis said he was not setting a precedent by approving the capture.

“The decision to capture and relocate the Copper Creek pack was made with careful consideration of multiple factors and feedback from many different stakeholders,” Davis said in the news release, which was emailed around 8 p.m. “Our options in this unique case were very limited and this action in no way sets a precedent for how CPW will resolve wolf-livestock conflicts in the future.”

The agency declined to answer further questions. State officials also would not say where the wolves were captured or relocated, saying only that they would provide details when the operation was complete.

“The ultimate goal of the operation is to relocate the pack to another location while we assess our best options for them to continue to contribute to the successful recovery of Colorado’s wolf population,” Davis said.

Wolf organizations strongly criticized the plan to capture and relocate the wolves.

“This decision is driven by politics, is not rooted in science-based management, and will significantly slow the progress of the reintroduction program,” Mike Senatore, senior vice president of conservation for Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. “All parties involved in the events leading up to this deeply flawed decision must be held accountable for failing to effectively use proven coexistence tools. CPW and the ranchers in the area must clearly demonstrate ownership of developing and implementing plans to prevent these types of scenarios from happening in the future.”

And the Center for Biological Diversity called it a potential “death sentence” for the pack’s cubs.

“I’m really concerned that moving Copper Creek wolves to unfamiliar territory is a death sentence for the pups, especially if the wolf pack isn’t kept together,” said Alli Henderson, the Southern Rockies center’s director. “Those ranchers who don’t get their act together are the real problem, and they’re setting us up for repeated conflict. Moving wolves to appease them only rewards the uncooperative and poor practices that have contributed to the conflict in the first place.”

Colorado’s own wolf plan says relocating the transplanted wolves is not ideal. “To be effective in reducing further depredations, lethal and nonlethal conflict resolution responses must be implemented promptly and appropriately,” it says. “Relocating predatory wolves has little technical merit.”

Rancher dealing with Copper Creek pack asked for permission to kill wolves

The Copper Creek pack was linked to the killing of three yearling cattle on April 17 and the deaths of three other yearling cattle in April and May. It was also linked to the killing of a sheep on July 17, according to a letter from CPW denying the rancher’s request to kill the wolf.

When the wolves were released in December, they were wearing tracking collars and wildlife officials watched their movements. The female wolf is believed to have been hiding in a den in April, and in June CPW announced that at least one pup had been born. The rancher reported seeing the male wolf carrying parts of cattle in his mouth, likely back to the den.

In a letter dated April 24, the rancher had applied for a permit that gives the permit holder the authority to kill wolves if chronic livestock killing and bullying has not worked.

In its response, the state wildlife agency said the rancher likely could have avoided some of the livestock losses if it had accepted assistance earlier from the Colorado Department of Agriculture, which offered to pay for a range rider in early April. The rancher accepted the assistance in late April after losing five head of cattle in a 12-day period, the letter said.

The rancher also tried cracker shells, fox lights and other harassment techniques to scare away the wolves, and allowed CPW to conduct night-watch operations, the letter said. However, Colorado wildlife officials learned on April 22 that Ferrell had an “open dead pit” on his property to dump dead livestock, but that the rancher had not buried the pit until May 8, even though wildlife officials warned it could attract wolves.

Wolves are protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act and the Colorado Threatened Species Conservation Act. As an experimental population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or state wildlife managers may kill wolves that prey on dogs or livestock under limited circumstances.

But that requires a definition of chronic depredation — or repeated killing by wolves — and CPW has yet to define one. That has left ranchers with their hands tied, just as Ferrell was when he asked for help.

On August 14, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, North Park Stockgrowers Association, and Routt County Cattlemen’s Association wrote a joint letter criticizing the agency’s rationale for rejecting Ferrell and accusing CPW and Governor Jared Polis of “supporting a disturbing trend that prioritizes wolves over the legitimate needs and rights of ranchers.”

The letter continued that “protection of predatory animals should not come at the expense of livestock producers who have demonstrated a clear and ongoing threat to their livestock and their livelihoods.”

May, chair of the CPW committee, said wildlife managers and ranchers deserve applause for their efforts.

“Anyone who enjoyed watching that video of the three puppies playing in the puddle while their mother watches should appreciate what not only CPW has gone through to get to this point, but what the producers who paid the price have done to make sure this was possible,” he said. “They should be commended.”

According to CPW, federal wildlife managers are helping Colorado capture and remove the animals.

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife is committed to fulfilling the will of Colorado voters to successfully restore the gray wolf population while meeting the needs of Colorado communities,” CPW’s press release said.

Contributor Jason Blevins contributed to this report.