Colorado wolfpack makes first reported livestock kill since members presumably shot

Colorado's North Park wolfpack reportedly injured a cow calf badly enough it had to be euthanized Saturday, marking the pack's first kill since three of its members were presumably killed in Wyoming just more than a month ago.

Johnny Schmidt, ranch manager for Park Range Ranch of Jackson County, said Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer Zack Weaver confirmed the approximately 520-pound calf was injured by three to five wolves during a necropsy.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife said Monday afternoon the wolf kill has been confirmed and the ranch will be compensated for the loss.

Schmidt said the incident took place on the ranch's private grounds at the 2,500-acre south complex near Lake John, a popular North Park fishing destination. He added that it is not far from houses and less than 200 yards off a "busy'' intersection of Jackson County Roads 12 and 7, seven miles west of Walden.

"Not in a million years did I think this would happen there," Schmidt said. "Not with five houses with kids a quarter mile away, and as much traffic is on that road. The wolves are getting way too brave around people.''

Schmidt said the injured calf was found Saturday morning while a ranch hand was checking cattle. He said he had trucked the calves' mothers to Nebraska for the winter and the calves were being weaned. They had been held in pens and on Friday were allowed to wander into a 20-acre pasture where the incident took place.

He said Saturday morning, the ranch hand found calves had been chased through a fence onto the road and a handful of others were in willows, one of which was the injured calf.

"Listen, I understand wolves roam and they have to eat and so these were just doing what wolves do," Schmidt said, noting it was the ranch's first encounter with the pack. "We are trying our best to live with them. What rubs the rancher the wrong way is not that they kill our cattle, but more that we can’t do anything to defend our cattle."

Wolves are listed as federally endangered in Colorado and can be killed only to protect human life. It is legal to use nonlethal hazing methods to deter wolves.

Schmidt said the ranch has used multiple nonlethal hazing methods, including fladry and guard dogs, to keep wolves from cattle at the ranch's north complex eight miles northwest of where Saturday's incident took place. He said that part of the ranch is more remote and where he thought wolves were more likely to cause problems.

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The fate of the North Park wolfpack

If confirmed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife, it will be the first depredation of livestock reported by the pack since it is presumed three members of the pack were legally shot north of Jackson County about 10 miles into Wyoming on Oct. 14.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff told wildlife commissioners at Thursday's meeting the wolves killed in Wyoming were 1½ years old, which matches the age of the North Park pack's pups, the first born in the state in 80 years. Those shot were all black, which matches the color of seven of the pack's members.

Staff said none of the wolves had telemetry collars and that Wyoming would not share DNA testing on the animals due to Wyoming state law prohibiting it.

There have been sightings of the pack in North Park since the presumed killings in Wyoming but most of those sightings included three to five wolves. The pack originally was comprised of a gray breeding male, black breeding female and six black pups.

There has been no confirmation of the breeding mother of the pack being alive since February. Colorado Parks and Wildlife said there has been no evidence she produced pups this spring and the agency doesn't know if she is alive or dead. She is estimated to be 6 years old. Life expectancy of wolves in the wild is 4.5 years.

If Saturday's incident is confirmed, it would be the first wolf depredation since Oct. 9, when the pack killed a calf about 20 miles away from the Park Range Ranch and injured another that survived. It also would raise the total of depredations confirmed by the pack to 10, including five cows, three calves and two working cattle dogs since December.

Multiple other claims by ranchers of wolf depredations of livestock have not been confirmed by the state wildlife agency.

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