PITKIN COUNTY, Colo. — The dark green rolling hills around Snowmass hold a special place in the heart of Pitkin County ranchers, but that landscape is also home to the root of their stressors — a wolf pack that they believe should never have been re-introduced there.
From the top of one of those hills, Michael Cerveny and Brad Day looked down over the acres of pasture land, bordered by thick and scrappy vegetation. The two men have cows spanning U.S. Forest Service land, Bureau of Land Management land and the ranch property, and they work "fence-to-fence," meaning their two herds essentially have become one herd across two different ranches, Day explained.
They have known each other since they were kids growing up in Wisconsin, dreaming about moving out west as adults and building a life with their families.
And since the dream came true, they have happily immersed themselves in the sunup-to-sundown work, rewards and views that come with raising beef cattle in Pitkin County.
Even when gray wolves were introduced in December 2023 and again in January 2025 — as voters, heavily from the Front Range, narrowly required in the 2020 passing of Prop 114 — Cerveny’s and Day’s dedication to their cattle continued without pause.
"If you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life,” Cerveny said.
That sentiment still remains, even after the Copper Creek Pack was re-released in Pitkin County in January after being captured last year following a string of livestock kills, and even after CPW confirmed seven cases of wolves depredating — meaning killing or seriously injuring — livestock in the county this year.
"I still enjoy getting up, still enjoy seeing the grass grow — even on a drought year — and love seeing the calves on grass grow, and love seeing your kid out here with you," Cerveny said.
However, frustrations are mounting and coming close to a breaking point.
"We had black hair before the wolves, right?" Cerveny asked Day with a small smile.
These ranchers feel it, as does Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), since the wolves have become a significant topic of discussion at many of the past year's meetings.
“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,” said CPW Director Jeff Davis about livestock producers at a July 17 meeting.
Cerveny and Day have not shied away from obstacles — their chosen careers have all but promised they will face challenges.
Their concern is when the specific issues with the Copper Creek Pack will come to a close, if ever, even as CPW agrees that killing another wolf in the pack is appropriate.
“We all have trials, right? So, we're not afraid to go through them. But at the same time, we're hoping that this trial isn't something that is going to become so insurmountable that the reality of us not doing this is an option or a thought,” Cerveny said. “We're still going to do it. We're still going to fight through this and then hopefully hold the powerful accountable."
"We weren't told that we (would) have known depredating wolves"
For cattlemen and producers, death is part of the deal. There is disease, infections, trauma and difficulty during birth. But ranchers do everything they can to raise healthy calves and cows and to ensure they have a good life, Cerveny said.
“And we know what they're ultimately going to become, right? They're here to feed us, but you’re here to take care of them. You're stewards of them, also, as with the land,” he said. “And it's extremely frustrating to see death alone where it naturally happens, but something that is kind of thrusted on you, that doesn't need to be there — super frustrating."
He said he and Day wanted to talk with Denver7 not because they have an issue with the state's wolf reintroduction program as a whole, but rather that they have worries about the Copper Creek Pack, specifically.
The Copper Creek Pack first came to be in June 2024 when CPW biologists confirmed a pair, both translocated from Oregon in December 2023, had mated and had pups in Grand County. In August 2024, CPW announced that it had started an operation to capture the entire pack and relocate them, noting that the animals were behind multiple depredations in the area. This was something livestock producers had requested for months.
Last September, six members of the pack were captured — one pup was never caught — and brought to a large, secure and undisclosed enclosure. The adult male, which was found in poor condition, died a few days later and a necropsy later confirmed it had been shot, which led to its death and prompted a federal investigation into the illegal kill. Later that month, ranchers brought a petition forward with a list of demands to be met before the next round of wolf releases in the state, including the re-release of the Copper Creek Pack. Following an hours-long meeting, this petition was denied by the CPW Commission on Jan. 8.
About 10 days later, CPW released 15 gray wolves from British Columbia, as well as the five members of the Copper Creek Pack, into Pitkin and Eagle counties. Cerveny said three of the new wolves from British Columbia, as well as the adult female and her four yearlings from the Copper Creek Pack, were put near their cows. In February, an adult male from British Columbia joined the Copper Creek Pack and bred with a female, CPW confirmed.
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.
By the start of 2025, the Copper Creek Pack was well-known by producers across the state for the animals’ depredations on livestock in Middle Park.
Day said he knew wolves were coming to Pitkin County, but nobody told him that it included the Copper Creek Pack.
“We're against the fact that we weren't told that we (would) have (these) known depredating wolves, that relocated for the third time to us. That would be a frustration — how that managed to happen,” Day said. "… It says in the (wolf) management plan: Known depredating wolves will not be released.”
Word-for-word, the plan indeed reads: "The translocation of depredating wolves to a different part of the state will not be considered, as this is viewed as translocating the problem along with the wolves."
To add to their confusion was the fact that the wolves were re-released near livestock, busy roads and a popular ski area.
Upon hearing that the wolves were in Pitkin County, Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, told Denver7 in early July that it made him “sick” to think of fellow ranchers like Cerveny and Day going through what Middle Park had experienced in 2024.
"We've been in constant contact with those guys, saying, you know, 'This is what you need to expect. This is what you need to pay attention to,'" Ritschard told Denver7. "We went through this, and so, we're trying to help them as much as we can."
During the spring calving season, Day and Cerveny ran operations as normal.
One day in March, Cerveny was stringing hay behind a tractor for the cows and as he counted them, he noticed one was missing. He assumed it had perhaps jumped in with Day’s herd since they share a fence line. About a week or two later, when the animal did not show up, he asked Day about it. Day said he hadn’t seen the missing cow.
"And I notice I'm missing another one,” Cerveny said.
As he searched for this second missing cow on March 13, he noticed that the herd was extra jumpy around his dogs in the pasture.
"I go looking and see all these tracks,” he said. “You can see the brush and the snow and the blood and everything, and that's where they separated that heifer. And I believe it was the last (second) one, because I never found the first one. It was just completely stripped, better than any butcher could do.”
The heifer’s hide was still there, which showed the trauma from the wolf attack.
CPW staff had told them to expect conflict, but the ranchers didn’t quite fully understand what that meant until it started happening, Cerveny said.
“It told the story,” Cerveny told us. "… When I found that heifer, obviously I was first really, really upset. And then I was extremely saddened just to see the whole crime scene, and then I just walked away… I let the two (CPW) agents who were there deal with it and I walked away.”
“Like Mike said, it's a bit of a crime scene compared to the normal unfortunate deaths we have in the calves — various sicknesses and things like that,” Day added. “It's way different.”
While Colorado ranchers can file a claim for the loss of livestock — as long as CPW confirms a wolf was responsible — Cerveny said he worries the general public sees it as compensation instead of reimbursement. He also argued that the fair market price, which caps at $15,000 for a livestock death or injury, does not take into account the animal's genetics, feed and future projected production.
Following the March wolf kill, both Cerveny and Day accepted resources from CPW to try to keep the wolves away, including fladry, which are flags strung along a fenceline. They would later also use fox lights and range riders with varying degrees of success.
It wasn't until CPW staff arrived at the ranch to put up the fladry, and Day asked about the wolves, that the two ranchers finally learned the wolves were indeed members of the Copper Creek Pack.
"I became just really frustrated with this whole program and the whole people within CPW, and this whole notion that they just kept on dumping the problem on boys in Middle Park,” Cerveny said. “Then they dumped the problem on us, and they've always reset the clock."
That clock he references is the 30-day rule outlined in CPW’s “Wolf-Livestock Conflict Minimization Program,” published in January, for chronically depredating wolves: “‘Chronic Depredation’ means three or more depredation events caused by the same wolf or wolves within a 30-day period, provided there is clear and convincing evidence that at least one of the depredation events was caused by wolves. The other two events could meet either ‘clear and convincing’ or ‘preponderance of evidence’ standards.”
To lethally remove a chronically depredating wolf, CPW must also consider the use of non-lethal conflict minimization tools, the likelihood the wolf kills will continue and any possible attractants to the property.
But with just one confirmed wolf kill, that threshold was not met.
Then May came.
CPW confirmed livestock depredations on May 17, 23, 24 and 25 at Cerveny’s and Day’s ranchland, and everything changed.
On the fourth day in that series — May 25 — Cerveny climbed to the top of a ridge with binoculars and a gun and spotted three wolves that had separated one of his cows and her calf from the rest of the herd.
“They were on it so fast and the calf was underneath the mom. The mom was trying to fight the wolves and the wolves were biting at it and biting at the mom, and that's when I just flew along that top ridge,” he recalled. “And by the time I got around the corner, they had left that cow and calf alone, and the one wolf was standing there watching me. And that's when I took two shots at it. It was like 700 yards away… I was beyond upset at that point.”
Each of the four cases were investigated. The 30-day rule came up. It was discussed. A decision was made.
And for the first time in state history, CPW killed a reintroduced wolf.
"Makes me sick... to see our cows get chased like that"
For two nights, staff with CPW were up in the hills around the property searching for the wolf to shoot, later calling the removal "authorized and appropriate" in a press release. Close to 10 p.m. on May 29, they drove back down the road in a truck, with deceased wolf 2405 in a bag in the back.
Cerveny asked to see the animal, which was a yearling male born into the Copper Creek Pack in 2024.
“And it didn't make me feel good,” he said. “Didn't make me feel, like, justified. I don't know. It was just a weird feeling.”
The hope was this disruption in the pack would cause the predators to view the area as unsafe, and to move elsewhere and pursue natural prey.
CPW told the two ranchers that if the pack's behavior did not change, they would come and “take another one,” Cerveny said, adding that he does not understand how that could change the situation.
"These Copper Creek (wolves) need to go away,” Day said. “I'm not hopeful if we remove one more and we got pups running around... I mean, it's just clearly not working."
On Monday, Denver7 obtained a letter from CPW to the Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association about killing more wolves in the pack. Cerveny and Day had submitted an application to kill a wolf themselves, or place the entire pack in captivity, both of which were denied by CPW. However, the agency said that it found "lethal control efforts are appropriate under the circumstances," and CPW staff would carry out the lethal take.
"After the additional depredation confirmed on July 18, the Division is undertaking additional lethal control efforts," the letter reads. "Staff have been in the area since Sunday, July 20th attempting to locate the wolves. As you are aware, the terrain is challenging at best, and staff have not been able to get close to the wolves after multiple attempts. Staff will continue to monitor locations and attempt to intervene if possible."
As of the information available at publishing time, CPW has not yet killed a second wolf in the Copper Creek Pack.
After wolf 2405 was killed in May, CPW Director Davis visited the ranch to see the operation and hear about the problems the pack had caused directly from the ranchers. Cerveny said Davis explained that CPW would haze the pack and if that didn’t work, they could kill another wolf, but there was no promise that that would happen.
A few weeks afterward, toward the end of June, a video from a range rider on the property confirmed the ranchers’ fears: the wolves had not moved away.
The video, taken on June 23, showed two wolves near a herd of cattle and working to separate a cow and calf from the others. Day shared the video with Denver7, pointing out that it was a 58-second example from nearly an hour of livestock-wolf interactions on just one night.
"It just makes us, makes me sick, makes everybody involved in our operation sick, to see our cows get chased like that,” Day said.
CPW staff started regular checks on the property and drove by on the afternoon of July 2, when Denver7 visited, to head up toward the cows and haze any wolves in the area.
"How is that going to be sustainable, even this year?” Day asked. “And how effective is that actually going to be as these pups grow and are taught to chase... our cows, eat our cows?"
"We just want him (Director Davis) to fix the problem,” Cerveny added. “And it's not seeing guys drive in here at all hours a night."
To add to this continued stress, Day lost a calf to the wolves on July 18.
That came about 10 days after the CPW Commission held a special meeting about the future of the Copper Creek Pack and decided against directing CPW to take any further action, saying it was outside the commission's responsibilities.
Coming to the table with Colorado Parks and Wildlife
The two ranchers are new to “this political game, so to speak” and for the first time, took hours out of the day to voice their concerns at a CPW Commission meeting this year, Cerveny said.
“We don't have time to be doing this. You know, we don't want to be on the news,” Day explained. “We, just as you can see, have been up here, left alone with some water and some cows and plenty of work to do."
Entering the wolf conflict conversation has changed that.
“You really feel how small you are in this big machine of politics, and how you just truly are this little speck in this whole process, and these people don't seem to care one bit,” Cerveny said.
The ranchers took several hours out of their day in early July to show Denver7 around their property and share their story. And they told us the questions they still have for CPW Director Davis and Gov. Jared Polis.
"I'll stick with my original question that I had for Jeff Davis: Who decided that this Copper Creek wolf pack was to be dropped off where there's a lot of cows in the middle of the winter? We've yet to be answered that question," Day said.
He added that if Gov. Polis is the "ultimate decision maker" when it comes to wolf management in Colorado, he'd ask the same question to the governor.
Both men wondered if Director Davis has the authority to listen to what his district wildlife managers (DWMs) across the state are reporting back to him about wolf conflicts and act upon that information — or if Polis has his hands in those decisions as well.
"We're being told that they (DWMs) support us," Cerveny said. "They know what we're going through is wrong. They know that this pack should be removed, but at the end of the day, they're telling us that Jared, that Gov. Polis, is making that decision."
"We want everybody to continue to do what we're doing," he continued. "We want Brad and I want to continue to raise livestock and take care of the land. We want Jeff Davis to keep his job and raise his family and support his family, but we also want him to do the right thing."
Denver7 began reaching out to set up an interview with Director Davis and Gov. Polis on July 7.
As of publishing time, we have an interview with Davis scheduled and plan to air a follow-up to this story.
During the CPW Commission meeting on July 17, he briefly spoke about the difficult spots ranchers are in.
“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."
A spokesperson for Polis was unable to set up an interview before publishing time and sent a statement on July 24 that read in full:
“Colorado voters approved the ballot measure to reintroduce wolves into Colorado and Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Governor Polis are following the law and upholding the will of the voters, while working to balance the needs and concerns of producers. While Governor Polis did not advocate for, oppose or support the ballot measure, he always supports implementation of the will of the voters, including the successful implementation of the Wolf Management Plan, which was approved unanimously by CPW commissioners, including the timeline, in response to voters’ approval of the ballot measure.”
Denver7 is continuing to work to arrange an interview on this topic with the governor so we can bring ranchers’ questions directly to him.
"We don’t want to be the good guys or bad guys"
At the end of the day, the Copper Creek Pack is one problem the ranchers can’t solve on their own. The video of wolves attacking the herd was sent to Denver7 by another rancher we spoke with in mid-December 2024, who then connected us with Cerveny and Day to share their experience.
"We've had a number of people wanting to interview us," Cerveny said. "We don't want to be on the air. We don't want to be the bad guys or the good guys or anything."
"We've had plenty of other problems that we can just go deal with and fix. And this one, we can't," Day added. "We can't just go fix this ourselves, like a broken ditch or whatever the case may be. Maybe we feel like this is going to help fix this situation for us."
Cerveny said ranchers like himself deserve the answers, as does the general public who live outside the ranching community, about why the depredating wolves were re-released near livestock, which goes against the wolf management plan. The residents who voted for wolves should also know that “their vote isn't being executed in the way that they've voted for,” he said.
“Let the public know that they lied and their decision to lie has huge consequences for us and people like us,” he said. “You know, we all have lives and families and we just want the public to know that."
And for these two ranchers, that starts at the top.
"We want the truth to be told — what is happening with this management plan with this particular pack, and I think that's all we're looking for, is just to tell our story,” Cerveny told Denver7. “It's not to push a narrative. It's not to go after the wolf program. It's not even to go after Jeff Davis."
He said he wants Davis to “do the right thing” and for Polis to separate himself from the situation, if that is the case, and let Davis manage CPW.
As for the future of the Copper Creek Pack, the ranchers said they acknowledge the success with some of the other wolf packs leaving livestock alone, but that is not the case with this one.
“That's the problem with the wolf. You know, we don't dislike wolves, we just dislike the conflict,” Cerveny said. “And this particular pack seems to have a history of conflict."
“So, as far as the solution, I don't want them killed, but I know there's some places that they could go,” he continued. “It would be nice if they would just admit that and just do better on the next round."
