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During a on Monday, Colorado lawmakers questioned Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s top officials on recent wolf management decisions and future releases as producers pushed for more relief, communication and support for tools to mitigate conflict.

Colorado’s wolf reintroduction has been shrouded in controversy since voters approved the effort via Proposition 114 in 2020. 

At the hearing, Garfield County Commissioner Perry Will referred to wolf restoration as “East Slope directed, West Slope affected,” alluding to the proposition’s narrow passage bolstered primarily by urban voters. The measure . Only four Western Slope counties voted in favor of it. 

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In his testimony to the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee, Will said Colorado’s implementation of wolf restoration has “failed virtually on every front,” listing wolf deaths, producers, eroding public trust with the wildlife agency, and impacted relationships with ranchers and the agency’s field staff as some of the program’s casualties. 

As Colorado Parks and Wildlife has seen the effort through — relocating 25 wolves from Oregon and British Columbia in the first two years and rolling out conflict minimization programs — costs have escalated beyond what . Between July 2024 and May 2025, the agency reported it had spent over $3 million on the wolf program. 

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Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, said this was “$2.2 million over what the voters of Colorado were told this was going to cost,” in Proposition 114. While Roberts acknowledged that this money is hopefully being well spent to help compensate producers for livestock losses and provide them with conflict mitigation tools, he also expressed concern . 

“This seems out of control,” Roberts said. “It’s money that, because it is state statute, because it was passed by the voters, that we have to spend, which means we’re cutting from other things … We are prioritizing wolves over classrooms. We’re prioritizing wolves over roads right now.” 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis told lawmakers this escalation of costs came from a variety of factors as the proposition was realized in the wolf plan (approved in 2023) and its compensation plan. 

“We’re trying to be wise to where we can cut those costs,” Davis said. 

Who is making decisions about wolves and the Copper Creek Pack? 

During the discussion that stretched more than three hours on Monday, Parks and Wildlife’s decision-making around wolves came under fire by Western Slope legislators, producers and county commissioners.

Specifically, several individuals claimed that the decisions made about the Copper Creek Pack deviated from the agency’s wolf management plan to fit a political agenda rather than meet a biological objective. 

“(The stakeholders involved in the development of the Wolf Plan) put together a plan and agreed upon by a broad range of recreation, sportsmen, at large members, agriculture, CPW — a lot of time and effort, volunteer time and effort went into that,” said Tom Harrington, president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. “And yet, because of a rushed agenda, in my opinion, by the governor, to get at headlines instead of following the plan, now we’re dealing with the fallout.”

The ranch that Harrington helps operate was one of three in the Roaring Fork Valley that were impacted by a series of livestock attacks and kills by the Copper Creek Pack in May.  

The Copper Creek Pack was Colorado’s first pack established by reintroduced wolves in 2024. While the matriarch was reportedly not part of a pack in Oregon, the male , which had been involved in a confirmed depredation two months before his relocation to Colorado, despite the agency’s insistence that wolves with recent histories of depredation wouldn’t be considered for relocation. 

As the pair mated and had pups, the pack was tied to repeated livestock attacks in Grand County, prompting Parks and Wildlife to capture and relocate the animals to a sanctuary. The male wolf, which the agency reported was the primary perpetrator of the attacks, died in captivity from a gunshot wound suffered before his capture. 

In January, Parks and Wildlife released the matriarch and four pups from the sanctuary in Pitkin County, against the wolf plan’s claim that “the translocation of depredating wolves to a different part of the state will not be considered, as this is viewed as translocating the problem.”

When asked directly by both Roberts and Sen. Marc Catlin, a Montrose Republican, who decided to deviate from the plan and capture and relocate the pack, Davis took full responsibility. 

“That decision on Copper Creek was mine and mine alone,” Davis said to Roberts. 

To Catlin, Davis said, “I question that decision every day.” 

“That said, it led to a lot of really important things,” Davis added, including the expansion of several conflict minimization programs like its range riding program.

Davis, however, was less sure about some of the communication surrounding the pack’s release. 

When asked by Caitlin whether people in Pitkin County were told the Copper Creek Pack would be released in their area so they could be prepared and on alert, Davis said he didn’t have “firsthand knowledge of those conversations” and was not at the ahead of the 2025 releases.  

Later, when asked whether the private property owners where the pack was released were aware of the animals’ history, he said, “My understanding is they were aware.”

Bonnie Brown, executive director of the Colorado Wool Growers Association, told lawmakers that this decision to relocate the depredating pack “has damaged relationships with landowners and ranchers possibly more than anything,” and was seen as a “top-down decision.” 

“We’re the ones taking a beating on that,” Brown said. “We’re the ones that can’t sleep at night. Our livestock have been killed. We have the emotional (and) financial loss(es). We’re still at the table. We’re being civil. We’re working hard. And CPW needs to tune out the rhetoric in all the political interference and follow the plan. We deserve that.” 

Following the recent livestock attacks by the pack in Pitkin County — which met the agency’s definition of chronic depredation and occurred despite local ranchers’ use of nonlethal conflict mitigation — Parks and Wildlife killed one of the male yearlings.

This, Davis said, is evidence that the agency is back to following its management plan.  

“We did the initial lethal removal, we go into a waiting period, and we see if that alters the pack’s behavior or the individuals in the pack’s behavior,” Davis said. “If we have to go incremental in lethal removals, that is what our administrative directive says, and that’s what we will do.”

Still, ranchers in Pitkin County and some Parks and Wildlife commissioners have questioned whether the pack should be removed entirely from the landscape, prompting the commission to hold a special meeting on Monday, July 7, to discuss the animals’ fate. 

Restoring the public trust, improving communication 

Several producers and commissioners who spoke reported that these decisions have been eroding the public’s trust in the agency. They requested better data on wolf locations, more transparency and communication, more comprehensive conflict minimization programs and tools (including better long-term funding for nonlethal tools, a more established carcass management program and more) — and until then, no more wolves. 

“There’s just so many things inherently wrong that aren’t fixed yet,” Brown said. “That’s why we’re asking to let’s slow down and let the program management catch up before we put more wolves on the ground.”

Parks and Wildlife listed the ways it has been working to bolster programs and support for ranchers, including conducting 210 site assessments since January, deploying its first 10 state-hired range riders, recommending carcass management practices, deploying tools like scare devices and more. Davis acknowledged that the agency will continue to build these out and look for solutions.  

With calls for better data and communication, Davis admitted that there have been inconsistencies in how Parks and Wildlife has been reporting wolf locations to impacted locations.  

“I think you’ve heard, senator, in some of the responses, there are some areas that are providing a lot of detail, and there are some areas, for one reason or another, (that) are providing less frequent information,” he said. “These (GPS) collars say where the animals have been, not where they are or are going. And so that’s been, I think, some of the struggle.”

Kathleen Curry, whose family has a ranching operation in Gunnison County, said that one of the challenges is that producers feel like they are bearing the weight of reducing conflict alone.

“If we could get back to a feeling where the state was taking responsibility, I think that would also help with the relationships instead of constantly pushing it back on the producer,” Curry said, speaking on behalf of the United Wolf Coalition, a group of county officials, producer organizations, sportsmen, conservation advocates and more  

“My greatest hope is that we just need to talk with each other,” Davis said. “We need to not necessarily talk at a hearing, but talk outside the hearing and figure it out so we can bring solutions to you all as our policy leadership that can help us really, truly advance and make this work and not always have to be it’s this or that, which I think we’ve all collectively found ourselves in.”