GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Colorado Parks and Wildlife shared details and video of pups in one of the state's new wolf packs during the CPW Commission meeting on Thursday, where commissioners also voted on two wolf damage claims.
The Scripps News Group was the first to bring you the update about Colorado's three new wolf packs on Wednesday and we are continuing this coverage Thursday as we listened to the CPW Commission meeting, where officials provided more details. We had reached out to CPW on Monday to learn more about the packs and their makeups, but the agency said it would not do interviews ahead of Thursday's meeting.
The confirmation of these new packs was expected, as CPW staff said in mid-June that it had been monitoring den sites for weeks and had seen new pups.
During this meeting, two claims for damage caused by wolves were also discussed at length.
Latest on Colorado's 3 new wolf packs
Colorado's new wolf packs are the One Ear Pack in western Jackson County, King Mountain Pack in Routt County and Three Creeks Pack in Rio Blanco County. This is in addition to the Copper Creek Pack in Pitkin County.
Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell said local staff came up with the names, and shared a photo and video of pups within the King Mountain Pack from trail cameras.
The number of pups is difficult to determine, he said, as they are small and mostly stay out of view. In this picture and the video below, they are about 10 weeks old. Biologists are monitoring them, Odell said.
Limited other details were available about the packs.
You can watch the video CPW shared of the wolf pups in the player below.
About half of the pups will survive into the following spring, on average, Brenna Cassidy, CPW's wolf monitoring and data coordinator, previously told the Scripps News Group.
"It's tough in that first year of life," Cassidy said. "They're pretty vulnerable early on, and then they have a lot to learn when they start to travel with the pack in the fall... It's kind of dangerous in the first year of life for a pup, so 50% or 60%, if they make it to the next spring, is about average."
As of now, they are staying close to their mother.
You can watch full clips from our interview with Brenna Cassidy, CPW's wolf monitoring and data coordinator, in the video below, where she explains CPW's goal with wolf packs, how the animals chose where to den and pup survival rate.
The Scripps News Group asked if CPW is aiming to reach a specific number of wolf packs and Cassidy said no, explaining that pack size differs.
"We don't have a number on the exact number of packs that we want, but you know, reproduction is the goal," she said. "You know, we can bring wolves in, we can translocate wolves, but we need them to reproduce naturally in Colorado. So we'll see what the wolves decide to do. But they are very, very good at finding each other and reproducing naturally."
CPW's Assistant Director of Terrestrial Branch Brian Dreher said they are keeping an eye on where these packs are in relation to livestock.
Range riders are set up in the areas of all four of Colorado's wolf packs, he said. Of those four, three have had minimal conflicts with livestock. The fourth, the Copper Creek Pack, has had a history in both 2024 and 2025 of depredation issues.
Dreher explained that the Born to Be Free license plate, which supports programs to reduce and prevent wolf-livestock conflicts, has raised more than $900,000 as of July 1.
Looking ahead, Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell said the agency is expecting to release more wolves in January 2026 in "the southwest polygon" as seen in the state's wolf management plan.
He explained that they do not want to release more wolves in the same area as the initial two reintroductions.
“Releasing new wolves on top of those defended territories is a recipe for problems," he said.
Local CPW staff have reached out to stakeholders and stockgrowers in those areas already to start conversations, he added.
The Scripps News Group has been following Colorado's wolf reintroduction program since the very beginning, and you can explore all of that reporting in the timeline below. The timeline starts with our most recent story.
Two wolf depredation claims are discussed and settled
In addition to the news about the wolf packs, the commission also heard about two wolf damage claims.
When a wildlife damage claim is submitted to CPW, the agency can either accept the amount, renegotiate with the producer, recommend to deny it or settle. Compensation for wolf depredations comes from the General Fund, the Species Conservation Trust Fund, the Colorado Nongame Conservation and Wildlife Restoration Cash Funds, or other sources of funding for non-game species, according to the CPW.
CPW recommended denial for both claims. The commission voted to settle on both.
We listened to both claims and detailed them below.
Kathleen Pritchard, attorney at the law firm Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley, represented both claimants.
The first claimant on Thursday's agenda was Farrell Livestock in Grand County, requesting a total of $100,045.57.
“Farrell Livestock was the epicenter of livestock losses from wolves last year. CPW confirmed wolves killed at least 15 of the Farrell’s cattle and sheep," Pritchard said. "... If the Farrells, who were the epicenter of last year's depredations, don’t qualify for this compensation, it’s hard to imagine who would.”
Farrell Livestock had a claim of $287,407.63 approved unanimously by the commission in February after they saw multiple livestock kills on their property in 2024. They have been paid for that, Pritchard confirmed Thursday.
Environment
CPW Commission approves 2 ranchers' claims after 2024 wolf depredations
Thursday's $100K claim is for missing calves. Pritchard said in claims, CPW seeks a baseline of three years-worth of information regarding dead and missing calves. She said between 2021 and 2023, the baseline number of missing animals at Farrell Livestock was 23 and the number of missing and dead was 92. In 2024, they saw 89 missing animals and 155 missing and dead animals.
She argued that CPW wants to compare the average number of missing calves in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — 92 — to the number of only missing animals in 2024, which was 89, to try to show that the rancher is not entitled to compensation. It's like comparing a bucket of apples and oranges to a bucket of just apples, she explained.
"The bottom line here is if you interpret the regulations as CPW asks you to today, it’s not just wrong, it’s unlawful," she said. "It violates the wildlife acts requirement to pay producers fair compensation.”
- Read the full Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan here
Lenny Klinglesmith, a rancher in northwest Colorado and member of the stakeholder advisory group, which helped develop Colorado's wolf management plan, also spoke in support of the claims, noting that trust between CPW and livestock producers "has been on a razor-thin edge the entire time, and we're at a real tipping point."
"This can be done. We can establish a self-sustaining wolf population," Klinglesmith said. "We can manage chronic depredators and keep the compensation liability to the taxpayers lower. We can deter most wolves and keep damages lower. We can compensate the livestock producers and keep them on the land, sustainably feeding our people, feeding Americans.”
David Cooperstein, assistant attorney general on behalf of CPW, thanked both the CPW staff and ranchers for their work on these claims, but said the division disagrees with their reasoning.
"The itemized claim language represents a compromise between the considerations in favor and against claims for production losses. As with any compromise, some people are bound to be disappointed on both sides," he said. "Some think compensation is too high. Others think it’s too low. This is to be expected. And we’re still at the very beginning.”
He suggested that the CPW could amend the formal compensation regulations in the future if it believes that would be beneficial for claims, but urged the commission to not engage in rulemaking on Thursday to approve this specific claim.
A discussion and questions from the commissioners followed, where they talked about what is fair, what is legal and what the commission has the ability to do. One commissioner also noted that Colorado is home to more than 900 species and the CPW and commission is responsible for deciding how to manage all of them — not just wolves.
"We have to move on," Commissioner Tai Jacober said. "We have to talk about things that are also important. The only way to get there is to get to a place where we can agree and not have a legal argument over one word.”
CPW Director Jeff Davis also made a brief comment about the difficulty of these conversations.
“We have people that are losing hope and when people lose hope in my experience, they get desperate and desperate things start to happen," he told the group. "...I need to make sure we’re delivering stuff that keeps people at the table or we all will lose in this deal... I’m sitting here feeling, with a pit in my stomach, some really good people might walk away from the table when we need to keep them at the table and figure this out.”
They voted on a motion to deny the claim, as recommended by CPW, and it failed 6-5. Directly afterward, they voted on a second motion to settle for the full amount of the claim, which allowed the commission to compensate the rancher without legal disputes. This passed 9-2.
The second claimant was Coberly Creek Ranch in Routt County, which had three claims, including two that had already been settled and are highlighted in green below. The issue at question was again missing calves, just as in the Farrell case.
Pritchard urged the commission to — for the same arguments she had made earlier in the day — compensate the livestock producer and provide clarification on the definition of "missing" for the future.
“We ask that anything done for Farrell Livestock should be done for Coberly Creek," she said. "... The only fair thing to do today if you’re not going to read the regulation as written is to provide the same settlement amount of Coberly Creek.”
Again, a motion was brought up to deny the claim, which failed 6-5. A second motion was brought up to offer a settlement, again, in the total amount of the claim. This was approved 9-2.
As of publishing time, 11 wolf depredations have been reported and confirmed by CPW in Colorado in 2025.
The below list outlines an overview of the known wolf population in Colorado:
- Seven wolves surviving from the original 10 that were released in December 2023 (one died of a likely mountain lion attack, a second died from injuries sustained prior to his capture as part of the Copper Creek Pack relocation effort, and a third wolf became sickly and died)
- Four of the five wolf pups born in the spring of 2024 (one male was killed after multiple depredations in Pitkin County)
- 10 wolves surviving from the 15 that were released in January 2025 (one was shot and killed by Wildlife Services in Wyoming earlier this month, a second died of unknown causes in Wyoming, a third died in Rocky Mountain National Park, a fourth died in northwest Colorado and the fifth also died in northwest Colorado)
- Unknown number of pups born in four packs in 2025
- Two wolves that moved south from Wyoming several years ago
- One uncollared wolf that was last known to be in northwest Moffat County in mid-February. It is not clear if it is alive or still in the state.
- Possible, but unconfirmed, wolf in the Browns Park area as of February. It is not clear if it is alive or still in the state.
