Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s top wolf official, Eric Odell, is set to retire from the agency later this year. 

“Eric Odell has been a valuable member of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s team for more than two-and-a-half decades and his retirement leaves big shoes to fill,” said Laura Clellan, the state wildlife agency’s director, in a statement. “We are grateful for the dedication, expertise and passion that Eric has brought to the many projects and efforts he has been involved with in his time at CPW and look forward to honoring his illustrious career and celebrating this next chapter of his life.” 

The state wildlife agency has not announced Odell’s departure date, but has started the search for his successor. 

Luke Perkins, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement that Parks and Wildlife intends “for there to be an overlap period for training and seamless transition of the wolf conservation program manager position.”

News of Odell’s departure from Parks and Wildlife comes less than six months after Jeff Davis was forced to resign as the agency’s director in December. Davis started with the state wildlife agency in May 2023, as its wolf restoration plan was being finalized and just months before the first wolves hit the ground. 

Clellan, a retired adjutant general and executive director of Colorado’s Department of Military and Veteran Affairs, served as the interim director before being permanently appointed by the Parks and Wildlife’s commission in February.

Odell first started at Parks and Wildlife in 2000, holding roles as a habitat biologist, conservation biologist, grassland coordinator and carnivore conservation program manager before being tapped as the biological lead for the state’s wolf reintroduction of gray wolves after it was mandated by Colorado voters in 2020. 

In this role, Odell has helped guide the creation and execution of the state’s wolf restoration plan, including the capture and release of 25 wolves from Oregon and British Columbia and the first four pack formations in the program’s first two years.  

“From the very beginning, and even before the passing of Proposition 114, Eric fully embraced his role as the biological lead for wolves in Colorado,” said Brian Dreher, the assistant director for Parks and Wildlife’s terrestrial wildlife branch, in a June 2023 interview with the Parks and Wildlife’s magazine, Colorado Outdoors, on the gray wolf restoration effort. 

“Eric formed relationships with many experts in wolf management and fostered relationships with other states that will ultimately help implement a successful restoration and management program,” Dreher added. 

Odell’s experience with Colorado wolves began prior to the passage of Proposition 114, becoming the first person to collar the wolves that naturally migrated into North Park from Wyoming in 2021 and had pups. This experience was a day he’d never forget, Odell told the agency’s magazine. 

“Whether it is wolves or Canada lynx or black-footed ferrets, conservation of wildlife species is at the core of what CPW is about,” Odell said in the article. “To be able to be part of re-establishing a species to its native habitat and have it persist and to know we made a difference in wildlife populations in Colorado, there’s satisfaction in that.”

While Colorado’s wolf program has had a rocky start — with 13 of 25 reintroduced wolves now dead, federal interference forcing a pause in the third year of releases, ongoing concerns from producers over limited conflict-prevention tools, and criticism from both producers and wildlife advocates about the program’s politicization — Odell maintained a hopeful outlook.

“Nothing has been a surprise so far,” Odell said at the July 17. 2025, commission meeting. “We knew that there was going to be conflict. We knew that there would be dead wolves, and we knew that there would be wolf reproduction. So these are all landmarks that are important parts in the whole effort of wolf restoration.”

Odell acknowledged that dealing with these conflicts and milestones has “proven challenging for producers, for CPW staff and for a variety of others, but it is a success.” 

“We’re working toward success in many different ways, not just from a wolf population side of things, but from a producer perspective as well. We hope to aim for that,” he added. 

Jay Tutchon, a Parks and Wildlife commissioner, defended Odell and Parks and Wildlife staff for their work amid the controversy in March 2025. 

“Our wolf program gets a lot of publicity and flack, but you guys have done an incredibly professional job,” he said. “I couldn’t be more pleased. And whatever criticism the program as a whole receives, you don’t deserve any of it because you guys are doing exactly what we asked you.”