At least one more litter of wolf pups has been born in Colorado, state wildlife officials confirmed Thursday.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists are watching four dens and have seen pups and started to count them, spokesman Travis Duncan said. He did not release a number of pups or say whether all four dens under observation are confirmed to have pups.
The state agency did not say where the new pups are, but the news comes a few days after a Pitkin County rancher told The Colorado Sun that there is a den with pups about a quarter-mile from his ranch, which is about 20 miles from Aspen.
The rancher, Mike Cerveny, recently watched three wolves attack one of his calves at his Lost Marbles Ranch. He believes the wolves preying on livestock in the area are from a litter born last year — the first reported pups after wolves were reintroduced to the state at the end of 2023.
A wolf was killed last month by state wildlife officials after it preyed on livestock on ranches near Lost Marbles. It was identified as a yearling male from the litter born last year.
Wildlife officials have counted the new pups through “direct observations” and indirect methods, Duncan said. Sightings, especially in the early summer when wolves are still in their dens, are not always a reliable indicator of how many wolves were born, he said.
Colorado has “prepared diligently” for the birth of more pups, including by hiring and training 11 range riders to patrol ranches this summer and protect livestock, the nonprofit Western Watersheds Project said in a news release.
“These newly established wolf families significantly bolster the wolf population in the state and are markers of the success of the wolf reintroduction program,” the group said.
Voters in 2020 approved wolf reintroduction. Colorado Parks and Wildlife wrote a 300-page plan for establishing a sustainable population of 30 to 50 wolves in three to five years after reintroduction. The work includes bringing animals to Colorado from other locations.
Wildlife officials have completed more than 196 site assessments to help ranchers protect their animals and the state has provided turbo fladry, a barrier around a ranch that flaps in the wind and is supposed to scare wolves, as well as night watches and dozens of guard dogs. The effort was funded mainly through the $819,000 generated through sales of the Born to be Wild license plate.
“We are elated to welcome these new wolf pups into the world and into our great state,” said Delaney Rudy, Colorado director for the Western Watersheds Project, calling their birth an “exciting step toward restoring ecological balance in Colorado.”
The first litter of pups born in Colorado after wolves were transported to the state was the Copper Creek pack. The pack, including two adults and four pups, was captured last September after feeding on livestock. One of the pups from that litter was not captured and left in the wild.
The adult male from that pack died four days after arriving at a sanctuary, and the female and the four pups were released back into the wild this winter.
The Pitkin County rancher believes the new wolf pups are the offspring of the adult Copper Creek female and a male wolf translocated from British Columbia in January, though wildlife officials have not confirmed that.
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