Western Slope ranchers and elected officials urged Colorado Parks and Wildlife and its commission on Thursday to take more aggressive action in mitigating the impacts of the Copper Creek wolf pack on local livestock operations. 

The Copper Creek pack was recently tied to four livestock attacks in eight days at ranches in Piktin County, leading Parks and Wildlife to kill one of the pack’s male yearlings. The attacks took place at McCabe Ranch at Old Snowmass, Crystal River Ranch and Lost Marbles Ranch.

“The one thing you guys can do for us is we need to remove this pack,” said Chris Collins, whose family owns the McCabe Ranch, at the Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting on Thursday in Glenwood Springs. “We don’t want to see the wolves go away; we want to see the bad wolves go away. So please help us.” 

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The attacks in Pitkin County came almost five months after the Copper Creek Pack was released back into the wild. 

The pack’s adult female and four pups were held in a wildlife sanctuary for several months after being removed from Grand County last fall. The pack was connected to the deaths of at least 15 cattle and sheep in the region. The pack’s adult male died in captivity — days after its capture due to a gunshot wound — and was reportedly the wolf responsible for the depredations. 

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Doug Bruchez was among the Grand County producers who were impacted by the pack last year and who spoke in support of Pitkin County ranchers on Thursday. 

“The stress on these producers and (Parks and Wildlife) staff is having irreversible consequences, not to mention the financial toll,” Bruchez said. “Many wolves in this state are not causing problems, but coexistence is not possible when problem wildlife are not being managed.”

What is Parks and Wildlife’s current plan for the Copper Creek Pack? 

Parks and Wildlife’s decision in late May to kill the wolf came “after determining livestock producers had experienced chronic wolf depredations despite having implemented their site assessments and nonlethal deterrence measures in those (assessments) and removing any attractants capable of luring wolves to their sites,” according to Jeff Davis, director of Parks and Wildlife. 

Davis said the agency was following its wolf management plan with the killing of the wolf to “alter the social structure and social behavior of the pack itself.”

“Not all those animals have been involved in those depredations,” he said, later adding that one member of the pack “I don’t think has been around any of these depredations.”  

Davis said staff are now monitoring the pack’s behaviors daily, calling them “the most monitored group of animals that I’ve ever seen.”

“We will react promptly when we see evidence of behaviors that are not going to be tolerated,” Davis said. 

Travis Black, Parks and Wildlife’s northwest regional manager, confirmed there are two Parks and Wildlife-employed range riders deployed in the area — one who has “basically been dedicated to this pack.” 

Davis confirmed the agency has also considered using diversionary feeding — supplying the wolves with food sources such as road-kill — to sway the animals away from livestock as food. 

While Davis said wildlife agencies in other states have proven this to be effective, the agency is seeing movements from the wolves that indicate they are following an elk herd in the region. This, he said, begs the question: “Do we intervene with that in a manner that might unnaturally hold them from moving along with that elk herd?” 

Following the yearling’s death, a ranch in Old Snowmass reported two additional calf depredations. Parks and Wildlife said the carcasses lacked the amount of evidence required to tie them to a wolf attack. 

“I get that that is a question out there and whether or not these animals were involved in either depredating and/or foraging on those carcasses,” Davis said, adding that the agency remains in a “waiting period” to take further action. 

Ranchers, elected officials call for more in Copper Creek ‘blunder’

Ranchers and elected officials pushed back Thursday, urging for more action. Their primary ask was for Parks and Wildlife to remove the Copper Creek pack from the landscape, either lethally or by returning the wolves to a sanctuary. Calls were also made for increased transparency and additional support from wolf advocates and the agency to help producers coexist and defend their livestock.  

Colorado Sen. Mark Catlin, a Republican who represents the state’s 5th District, Garfield County Commissioner Perry Will, and Rio Blanco County Commissioner Callie Scritchfield were among those who called for the pack’s removal from the wild on Thursday.  

Will called Colorado’s wolf reintroduction a failure on every front, including the agency’s decision to re-release the five members of the Copper Creek pack in January.

“One hundred percent that Copper Creek Pack, I think, has proven what it’s going to do,” Will said. “And I don’t hold that against wolves. That’s doing what wolves do.” 

Removing these “bad actors” could allow Colorado “to move forward with a really positive wolf reintroduction,” he added. 

Wildlife advocates spoke against the pack’s removal, especially killing all its members, calling instead for continued, nonlethal conflict mitigation strategies and greater collaboration. 

“The act of taking this entire pack out would be egregious in my mind … let’s give them a chance,” said Mark Surls, the Colorado coordinator for Project Coyote.”Everybody that I hear (today) wants this to be successful … let’s make a true effort for collaboration, cooperation.”

Catlin urged action on behalf of the ranchers, whom he said are suffering and seeing their livelihoods impacted. 

Mike Cerveny, who leases land at Lost Marble Ranch, detailed the fear and stress he’s experienced with the wolf presence and recent attacks. 

“It’s all encompassing,” Cerveny said. “There’s not a second or a minute that goes by that’s not focused on the wolves. Ultimately, it’s the health and the safety of your animals and your livelihood. And I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

Tai Jacober, a Parks and Wildlife commissioner and Carbondale rancher, said the actions around the Copper Creek Pack are “a blunder on the agency, it’s a blunder on the wolves, and it’s really difficult on the ranchers.” 

“Why are we blundering an entire wolf program with one group of animals?” Jacober asked. 

“It’s been quite ugly,” Jacober said, adding that now that wolves have entered his community he understands the producers’ frustrations around transparency and communication.

“That frustration has some backbone,” Jacober added. 

Brittany Dixon, executive director of Club 20, a nonprofit representing 22 Western Slope counties, renewed calls for a pause in wolf reintroductions until more effective and reliable communication, carcass management, depredation response and compensation systems were implemented. 

“We were told there would be clear communication, workable mitigation, and compensation programs,” Dixon said. “Instead, producers are left navigating unclear guidance, bureaucratic compensation hurdles, and a dangerous communication breakdown. It’s unacceptable that our producers often hear about wolves in their vicinity from neighbors or social media, not from (Parks and Wildlife) themselves.” 

As members of the public and the commission asked for more comprehensive, and quicker, actions, Davis said he empathizes with local producers and the field staff, but that the agency is taking incremental movements as recommended by its wolf management plan. 

“One at a time is what our (wolf management plan) says,” he said. Later he added, “We’re trying to be incremental and strategic in our movements before we jump all the way to all of them are bad animals.”

At the end of the meeting, Jacober attempted — and later retracted — a motion to have the commission direct Parks and Wildlife staff to remove the pack. While other commissioners expressed interest in the idea, others pushed back that it was not part of the board’s legal authority and that the board lacked all the information to make a decision. 

Ultimately, the commissioners agreed to host a special meeting on the pack before its next meeting, scheduled for July 17 and 18 in Grand Junction.