The end of another month is approaching, and once again, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has released their latest update in regard to where the state's collared wolves have been.
With the mapping based on which watershed units wolves have been detected in between March 26 and April 23, it's been confirmed that reintroduced wolves have traveled east across the Continental Divide and into parts of the Front Range.
The updated map shows wolves moving mostly out of Rio Blanco County and north into more of Routt and Moffat counties. Perhaps most notable, wolves seem to have expanded their range east of US 34 in Grand County, into the Rocky Mountain National Park area. Wolves have also been detected in Larimer County once again, which is home to Fort Collins and Estes Park, and they've been detected in a larger portion of the county than before, now including in the Red Feather Lakes area.
Long story short, Colorado's wolves are on the move and have been detected in the area of several notable outdoor recreation destinations around the state.
It's also worth noting that April has been a busy month in terms of wolf news, with multiple cattle depredations taking place, as well as the death of one of the reintroduced wolves – authorities have said that appears to be due to natural causes, but an investigation is ongoing.
Find additional updates here.
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(6) comments
Let's put some things in perspective.
There are 2,500 wolves in Minnesota. There are massive elk herds in Minnesota, and there are over 18,000 beef farmers with over 2 million head of cattle representing a $2 Billion industry. Nobody panics about wolves there because they were never eradicated there.
There are 10 - strike that, 9 wolves here in Colorado and people are acting like it's the apocalypse.
Your fear is unjustified.
this is trashy journalism at it's finest.
This is great!
Four separate articles on wolves just in today's newsletter. Let's not beat a dead wolf, er horse!
Your fear-mongering regarding wolves in Colorado is not based in fact.
Wolf attacks on humans are exceedingly rare— the risk is so small that it can hardly be calculated. More people are injured by bison and moose than wolves by orders of magnitude, especially in the lower 48 where the last documented wolf attack was in 1893 in Northern Michigan..
While the risk is not zero, humans are at FAR greater risk from the other humans they encounter in the wilderness than from a wolf encounter. They’re at far greater risk of dehydration or exposure or slips/falls than from wolves.
Want to keep wolves away from your property? Secure your garbage and your pets, which you should already be doing to protect from bears and cougars.
This breathless and negatively-slanted retelling of every single piece of info regarding our new wolf population, as if we all need to be on the utmost high alert from the Big Bad Wolf, really makes one question your journalistic integrity.
For the record, I live where the bears outnumber the people, far from Denver and Boulder. I do my research on things and vote accordingly.
I agree that Spencer McGee's wolf articles seem very slanted towards causing panic over wolf attacks. There were only about 10 wolves released and at this point they have no packs at this time large enough to take down large prey animals. Since this is calving season and not all calves are born healthy, they are easy prey. I have been denied the information from CPW about whether the livestock found dead were on our public land. As I have spent many days/hours on BLM land observing wild horses and the more plentiful private livestock, I will say that the cows are never supervised or protected and most that die are victims of illnes, injury or weather, not predation.
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