COLORADO — Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) staff have been monitoring multiple den sites for several weeks and confirmed Thursday that they have seen new pups born this year.
The number of pups is not yet clear, but CPW is monitoring four den sites.
"CPW staff have begun to get minimum counts of pups by both direct observations and indirect methods," Travis Duncan with CPW told Scripps News Denver on Thursday. "It is important to note that sighting numbers (especially from early season sightings) are not a guaranteed number of animals since certainty in detection is low, based on continued denning, moving to rendezvous sites and being in varied habitat."
No other details were available on Thursday about the 2025 wolf pups.
Brenna Cassidy, CPW's wolf monitoring and data coordinator, explained to Scripps News Denver in May that wolf dens are typically in the ground, secluded and near water.
"The female might not necessarily dig out a big hole," she said. "They will repurpose an old coyote den or a badger hole or something like that. And we usually find them in places that are just nice and secluded and not disturbed a lot. You know, somewhere near water, somewhere near shade."
Females give birth to four to six pups on average, and she will spend much of her time with them while her mate brings her food. After a month or so, they may start exploring just outside of the den, but will not venture far. A few months after they are born, typically in late June or July, they move with their mother to a rendezvous site, which serves as a den site without a hole in the ground, Cassidy said.
After that, they start to travel with the adults.
About half of the pups born in the spring will make it to the next year, Cassidy said.
Colorado saw its first confirmed wolf pups since the 1940s in June 2021.
The second known litter of wolf pups came in 2024 when reintroduced wolves from Oregon bred. The first confirmed sighting of those pups happened in June 2024. About two months later, a small group of wolf pups were spotted playing along a dirt road in Grand County.
- Read the full Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan here.
That pack, officially named the Copper Creek Pack, was made up of two adults and five pups. All but one of the pups was captured to be relocated following multiple livestock depredations in the area in September. The adult male, which was found in poor health, died shortly after capture. In early January, officials confirmed the male had been shot, making its death an "illegal killing," according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. That case is still under investigation.
The adult female and four pups were released in January 2025, along with 15 wolves that were trapped and translocated to Colorado. One of the now-year-old wolves was killed by CPW after multiple depredations in Pitkin County.
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