A yearling on a cattle ranch up Pitkin County’s Capitol Creek died to wolf depredation, according to a regional cattlemen’s association official. Another yearling is missing from the ranch, but the reason is unconfirmed.

The depredation is suspected to have taken place between March 13-14, said Ginny Harrington, Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association membership chair.

“It means they have realized that cattle are a food source for them,” Harrington said of wolves. “They got a kill.”

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She said Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed to the association and a number of ranchers that the depredation was wolf-caused, but that the agency in the middle of an ongoing investigation for the missing yearling, so the topic remains sensitive. 

CPW declined an interview with The Aspen Times but sent a statement.

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“CPW has team members working with the producer impacted, as well as surrounding producers to identify and deploy non-lethal wolf-livestock conflict minimization measures,” the agency said in the statement. “CPW’s ongoing external communications process is to update the Confirmed Gray Wolf Depredation webpage when a depredation is confirmed by CPW staff only after the investigation is officially closed to ensure accuracy.”

Though Harrington appreciates efforts by local CPW employees, she would like more transparency when it comes to wolf locations, as she said some ranchers from three to 12 miles away from the incident had not heard from CPW. 

“We’re all in this together, and we just need to have the best outcomes for both the livestock producers, for the wolves, for the other wildlife, and for our communities,” she said. “So we need help doing that, and CPW (are) the ones to help do that.”

With around 30 wolves currently in the state, the wolf depredation would be the first in Pitkin County since wolves were reintroduced to Colorado on Dec. 31, 2023, which was decided by Colorado voters in 2020. It would also be the first incident in the county since CPW started recording wolf depredation in December 2021.

There have been 21 incidents of wolf depredation across Colorado since they were reintroduced, mostly occurring in Jackson, Grand, and Routt counties, according to the state agency. There were 13 incidents of wolf depredation before wolves were introduced to those already in the state, from Dec. 19, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2023.

But cattle and livestock are under greater threat from other predators. 

Coyotes were responsible for the depredation of 8,500 Colorado lamb and sheep in 2023, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Bears were responsible for the depredation of 5,200 lamb and sheep and mountain lions were responsible for 1,100 in Colorado in the same year.

With a wolf population of 1,904, wolf depredation accounted for the loss of 0.01% in the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf-occupied territory in 2015, the last year interagency data on the region was published, according to nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. That’s compared to 8.37% of the region’s cattle population that died in 2015 from any cause.

Wolf depredation constituted 3.6% of cattle losses from predators across the United States in 2015, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Mountain lions and predatory birds both killed more cattle than wolves, with coyotes killing over 14 times as many cattle as wolves in 2015.

State agencies have set aside funding to help ranchers mitigate wolf conflict, according to CPW.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture set aside $300,000 to help with range riding and carcass management efforts for ranchers. Wildlife Services set aside $100,000 to help provide non-lethal conflict deterrents to ranchers. CPW has invested nearly $900,000 to help manage wolf depredation. The National Resources Conservation Service will invest $2.5 million over five years to help provide range riding, fencing, carcass removal and depredation monitoring. 

The “Born to be Wild” license plate program has raised over $740,000 for CPW to use as non-lethal, wolf-conflict support for producers, according to Courtney Vail, Rocky Mountain Wolf Project board chair. The program was launched in January 2024 by the Wolf Project, a nonprofit working to improve public understanding of gray wolves and options for the species’ re-establishment in the Rockies.

But as of January of this year, Roaring Fork Valley ranchers said these tools and support weren’t readily available from the state agencies.

“There’s really still growing pains, and everybody’s kind of looking over their shoulder and waiting for the next depredation, which really isn’t fair to the wolves but it’s understandable,” Vail said. “We’re looking forward to the day where we can start to celebrate wolves rather than see them as a liability, and see them as a threat.”

This story is from AspenTimes.com