Wolf advocates emailed The Colorado Sun after CPW announced the death, interpreting the howling as \u201ca likely sign the young wolf was calling out for his lost family.\u201d But Perkins said \u201cwolves howl for a number of reasons including: signaling the start or conclusion of a hunt, notifying other wolves of their territory, and communicating with other dispersing wolves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Wolf](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/wolf-pack-2.png\")
Colorado outdoorsman Mike Usalavage recorded a video Aug. 17, 2024, of wolf pups playing on a dirt road in an undisclosed location. The pups are part of the Copper Creek pack, which killed multiple livestock in Grand County before Colorado Parks and Wildlife relocated them to Pitkin County in 2025. (Courtesy Mike Usalavage via Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/p>\n
The agency said its decision to implement lethal control was made in accordance with the law, including\u00a0 the USFWS 10(j) rule, which designates Colorado\u2019s federally protected reintroduced wolves as a nonessential experimental population subject to killing as a form of management, Parks and Wildlife Commission regulations, and CPW\u2019s administrative directive regarding chronic depredation and lethal removal of depredating gray wolves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis management decision was a response to six confirmed depredations in Rio Blanco County in late July and August,\u201d the agency said. \u201cOf these depredations, three were determined by clear and convincing evidence to have been caused by a wolf with the others being determined by a preponderance of evidence to have been caused by a wolf.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Copper Creek pack has been a source of grief for ranchers since last year, when two wolves moved to Colorado from Oregon mated and had five pups. Around that time, the male and possibly the female were killing livestock on two ranches in Grand County, according to CPW records.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agency chose not to kill the male wolf when it suspected its mate was pregnant based on collar data. Later 5 pups were born and the agency in August decided to trap the pack<\/a> to deal with the depredations.\u00a0<\/p>\n The male, female and four pups were captured, but one uncollared pup evaded capture<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCPW left it for dead when they removed his family last year,\u201d said Mark Surls, Colorado coordinator for the animal advocacy group Project Coyote, said in a statement sent to The Colorado Sun. \u201cHe defied odds and survived on his own until CPW returned, this time killing him for preying on sheep grazing our public lands. It\u2019s a tragic example of how policy continues to value livestock lives over those of Colorado\u2019s wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n But CPW says there have been no additional depredations since the original shot was fired, indicating the pup was the wolf killing the sheep and thus meeting the definition for chronic depredation.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the third Copper Creek wolf that has died. Another male pup was killed in Pitkin County<\/a> and the adult male in the pack died <\/a>after it was captured. Eleven of the wolves moved to Colorado from Oregon and British Columbia have been killed by humans or predators.<\/p>\n Type of Story: News<\/p>\n Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colorado Parks and Wildlife says it has killed a yearling wolf confirmed to have killed six sheep in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2906,68404,159,67,132,68,837,59669,9571],"class_list":{"0":"post-204190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-cpw","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-wildlife","15":"tag-wolf-reintroduction","16":"tag-wolves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155704647677140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}