One of Colorado’s newest collared wolves died in Wyoming this week while a federal agency was “conducting livestock depredation mitigation” after multiple livestock were killed, state officials announced Thursday.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Sunday received a mortality alert from the collar of one of the wolves relocated in January from Canada to Colorado, the agency said in a news release. The wolf, a male with the collar identification 2505-BC, died in north-central Wyoming.
CPW did not say how the wolf died but noted in its announcement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services was “conducting livestock depredation mitigation in response to multiple livestock losses in Wyoming.”
CPW spokesman Travis Duncan declined to answer questions about whether Wildlife Services killed the collared wolf and directed all questions to the USDA. A USDA spokeswoman also did not immediately answer questions about how the wolf died.
Gray wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act in Colorado, but lose those protections if they wander into other states where they are not federally protected, like much of Wyoming.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has jurisdiction over the gray wolf population outside of the boundaries of the two national parks in the state and the Wind River Indian Reservation.
In the northwest corner of the state, the species is managed as a trophy game species and killing of the animals is controlled by hunting regulations. In the vast majority of the state, however, gray wolves are classified as predators and can be killed year-round without a license.
USDA’s Wildlife Services works with farmers and ranchers to abate damage caused by wildlife, such as beavers flooding fields and predators killing livestock. The service can relocate or kill wolves killing livestock, according to its website.
In 2023, the service killed 305 gray wolves and relocated 64 more across seven states in the Rocky Mountains and Great Lakes regions, according to agency data.
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