Colorado Parks and Wildlife has for the past week been trying to lethally remove a second wolf from the Copper Creek pack after the pack killed a calf July 18 in Pitkin County.
The removal effort came to light in a July 25 letter the state wildlife agency sent to the Holy Cross Cattlemen's Association, and shared with the Coloradoan by the association, denying a chronic depredation lethal take permit the association submitted to the state wildlife agency on behalf of Pitkin County ranchers Mike Cerveny, lessee of the Lost Marbles Ranch, and Brad Day, lessee of the McCabe Ranch.
Those two ranches have had seven of the eight Pitkin County wolf depredations of cattle this spring confirmed by the Copper Creek pack, including the most recent one July 18 at which the Coloradoan was present for the investigation.
The first Copper Creek member to be lethally removed by the state wildlife agency was a yearling male. The agency shot that wolf May 29 after series of depredations over Memorial Day weekend.
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Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Luke Perkins responded to a Coloradoan request for an interview July 28 with an email response, saying that "as this is an ongoing and sensitive operation CPW will not be providing interviews on it at this time."
Perkins' email stated agency staff have been in the area since July 20 attempting to locate the wolves but that challenging terrain has thwarted multiple attempts by staff to get close to them. The email stated staff will continue to monitor locations and attempt to intervene if possible.
"This management decision was made after an investigation by a CPW wildlife damage specialist on July 18 confirmed a wolf depredation of a single calf in Pitkin County. The calf appeared to have been previously injured by wolves and succumbed to the injuries. The exact date of this depredation is unknown due to the age of the wounds that were ultimately determined by a preponderance of evidence to be the cause of death."
The Coloradoan was visiting the ranches July 18 when Cerveny was called by Day to inform him that he had a dead calf on a public grazing allotment. In a July 20 email response to questions the Coloradoan had regarding the kill, Perkins stated "it is unclear which wolf or wolves from the Copper Creek pack were involved."
In a July 28 email, Perkins stated: "CPW’s management action will be taken toward a wolf we are confident was involved in depredation and is intended to change pack behavior by discouraging continued targeting of livestock as a prey base while also leaving the pack with the best chance of reproductive success in the future."
The decision to deny the ranchers' chronic depredation lethal take permit was in part because the "Division has the capacity to carry out the timely implementation of lethal control efforts in this instance," according to the denial letter signed by Travis Black, Colorado Parks and Wildlife's Northwest Region manager.
Rob Edward, president and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project that spearheaded the successful passage of the ballot initiative to reintroduce wolves, said he hopes Colorado Parks and Wildlife did its due diligence in coming to its conclusion to remove another pack member.
"I need to get more details in understanding why CPW thinks this action is necessary and why they think this will actually result in a reduction of conflicts," Edward told the Coloradoan. "So far, they have acted with thoughtful professionalism whether they need to do incremental removal of other members of the pack. We will have to see how this plays out."
Copper Creek pack has a history of depredations
The Copper Creek pack currently includes three yearlings born in Grand County last year, the yearlings' mother and a male wolf captured in British Columbia and released in Pitkin County in January. That wolf and the pack's breeding female had a litter of pups this spring.
Last fall, the Copper Creek pack's breeding female, breeding male and four pups were captured in a Colorado Parks and Wildlife removal operation in Grand County after repeated confirmed depredations. The breeding female and four pups were held at a sanctuary in Colorado before being rereleased on private property in Pitkin County in January.
The breeding male of that pack died in captivity from a gunshot wound. Efforts to trap a fifth pack pup failed.
The rerelease of the pack went against the state's wolf recovery plan that inferred known depredating wolves should not be translocated to others areas of the state.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Why Colorado wildlife agency is trying to kill a Copper Creek wolf
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