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Yahoo
08-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Colorado wildlife officials show patience with depredating Copper Creek wolfpack
The Copper Creek wolfpack has continued to chase and harass cattle in Pitkin County despite amped-up state resources, but wildlife officials are opting to give pack members a longer leash. Colorado Parks and Wildlife lethally removed a yearling member of the pack May 29. Since the removal, there have been no confirmed wolf depredations but several unconfirmed depredations and continued conflict on the same ranches for which the pack member was removed, agency staff reported at a special meeting July 7 focused on management options regarding the Copper Creek pack. The state wildlife agency desired to take a wait-and-see posture before removing any other pack members, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis told the agency's commission at the meeting. Davis said the agency promised the ranchers it will continue to spend resources — namely range riders around the clock — to keep the wolves from cattle on the McCabe and Lost Marbles ranches near Basalt, where a series of confirmed wolf depredations have taken place this spring. "There might be a need for additional actions taken, both nonlethal and potentially lethal," Davis told the commission. "My experience is that's rarely full pack removal, that's usually incremental. Those removals are intended to modify pack behavior. There is data out there that suggest we may not have modified that pack behavior enough." The data Davis presumably referenced is a thermal imaging video taken on one of the impacted ranches showing wolves chasing cattle and trying to separate a calf from its mother. You can watch that video below. Tai Jacober, a Pitkin County rancher and commission member, told commissioners and state wildlife staff that after range riders took a break from riding on the McCabe Ranch the night of July 3, the rancher, Brad Day, found his cattle scattered over other ranches in the area the next morning and had to retrieve them. 'This is a situation where we put these on the landscape, we recaptured them, knowing they were depredating, we let them out and they are behaving the same way they werel as before," Jacober said. "There's a limited amount of resources out there. At what point are we going to realize certain individuals are not worth all of the resources compared to the population we have to take care of?" Jacober made a motion at the commission's regular meeting in June to remove the Copper Creek pack. The motion was ruled out of order but prompted the special July 7 meeting. The Copper Creek pack has had seven confirmed depredations in Pitkin County this year after being implicated in the vast majority of the 18 confirmed depredations in Grand County last year. That prompted the state wildlife agency to capture pack members last fall and hold the breeding female and four pups at a facility until rereleasing them in January near the Lost Marbles and McCabe ranches, which went against the state's recovery plan of not rereleasing known depredating wolves. The pack's breeding male was also captured but was in poor condition when it was trapped and died days later. The state wildlife agency was unable to capture a fifth pup belonging to the pack. The agency confirmed at the July 7 meeting that the Copper Creek female, collar number 2312, and a wolf captured in British Columbia, 2305, had a litter of pups this spring. Lost Marbles and McCabe ranchers have said the den is near their cattle herds. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has poured resources into keeping the Copper Creek pack from more depredations in recent weeks, telling commissioners three to five range riders are riding the ranches and five of its nine wildlife damage specialists have worked with the ranches. Several commissioners who spoke at the meeting agreed with Colorado Parks and Wildlife's plan to give the conflict time to work itself out. Commissioner Jay Tutchton said removing the entire pack could jeopardize the state's federal 10(j) rule that allows lethal removal of depredating wolves in certain situations. "If we were start killing wolves for which we had no evidence or insufficient evidence that they had been involved in depredations, I think we would violate the 10(j) rule," Tutchton said. "That rule gives us flexibility to kill wolves involved in depredations but a bunch of puppies in a den, I do not think that's in line with the 10(j) rule." Commissioner Jack Murphy applauded the agency's handling of a difficult situation while learning as it goes along with implementing the state's wolf recovery plan that calls for releasing 10 to 15 wolves for three to five years in an effort to establish a self-sustaining wolf population. 'We don't have to kill everything, there are ways of dealing with things in a nonlethal way," Murphy said. "A lot on all sides need to relax a little bit and allow this to kind of play out. I feel for the ranchers that are having problems. Yes, it's a tough situation. Change is always difficult. I live in the city and I'm having to put up with traffic and that gets on my nerves, too." This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Colorado officials are hesitant to kill another Copper Creek wolf
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New KY law limits communication between teachers and students. Here's what to know
A new law intended to prevent child sexual abuse will go into effect later this month, changing the way Kentucky public school employees and volunteers can communicate with students. Senate Bill 181 aims to eliminate untraceable communication between students and school staff by prohibiting district employees and volunteers from texting students or using third-party apps to communicate with them. Additionally, teachers, coaches and volunteers will not be allowed to send messages to students' personal emails or contact them on social media. The law follows a Courier Journal investigation into child sexual abuse by middle- and high-school coaches in the commonwealth, which found abuse can be exacerbated by inappropriate communications between coaches and students. Though Kentucky schools have until Aug. 15 to adopt a new policy that meets requirements of the law, Jefferson County Public Schools spokesperson Carolyn Callahan said the district is getting a head start on enforcing it. Callahan said that until Aug. 1, district employees and volunteers should contact students using "only JCPS email or communicating through the parents." After that, the district will use a more standardized method of traceable communication. More: What to know about new laws taking effect in Kentucky in June Jeff Davis, a JCPS parent, said he wasn't pleased with the "abrupt" nature of the change. He said with the shift to email communication, his son is missing important updates from his coach. "Kids don't email," Davis said. "They don't. That's not how they communicate." Davis is also an assistant soccer coach within JCPS. He expressed concern that not all JCPS coaches have email accounts, meaning some will have no traceable way to communicate with student athletes remotely. He added that he believes people who want to abuse children will continue to do so regardless of legislation, saying the new law is "managing the exception, not the rule." "Let's just be honest here, the bad actors are still going to find another way," he said. Republican state Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, who sponsored SB 181, said the law is meant to inhibit unauthorized communication and protect children. In a press release, she said SB 181 "strengthens parental involvement, sets clear expectations for school-related communication, and ensures accountability." The Jefferson County Board of Education will discuss the law at its next meeting at 6 p.m. June 24 at 3332 Newburg Road. Reach reporter Molly Gregory at msgregory@ This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: New KY law changes how teachers, coaches can communicate with students
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Colorado Officials Euthanize ‘Chronic' Problem Wolf That Was Killing Livestock
The challenges associated with bringing gray wolves back to Colorado were illuminated yet again last week. On Thursday, state wildlife managers made what they called the 'very difficult' decision to kill a wolf that was preying on livestock on private land in Pitkin County, and which had previously been relocated from another county due to concerns around livestock depredations. The lethal removal took place the evening of May 29 on an unidentified cattle ranch. It was the first time that officials with Colorado Parks and Wildlife have killed a wolf since the voter-led reintroduction effort began in 2023. It was not, however, the first time that CPW has dealt with this particular wolf, which was identified in an agency news release as gray wolf 2405 and a member of the Copper Creek Pack. Read Next: The Wolf Pack Responsible for the Majority of Livestock Depredations in Colorado Will Be Relocated, Not Killed Officials explained that the young male wolf had met their definition of 'chronic depredation' after being linked to four such events in an eight-day period. They said those events occurred even with non-lethal deterrence measures in place. They pointed to 'clear and convincing evidence' that 2405 was responsible for three of the cows that were injured or killed on several different ranches in Pitkin County around Memorial Day weekend. 'The decision to take lethal management action was very difficult,' CPW director Jeff Davis said in a statement. 'Our wildlife biologists constructed a timeline of recent events that shows the depredation behavior met the conditions for chronic depredation that were defined earlier this year. We have great respect for these animals and take the removal of a wolf very seriously.'Davis went on to explain that the action was meant 'to discourage [the] other pack members' from preying on livestock. He said the agency would continue to monitor the behavior of those remaining pack mates 'to determine if behavior has changed,' but didn't specify what management actions might be taken based on that behavior in the future. It's also unclear based on CPW's timeline of events whether wolf 2405 was acting alone, or if other members of the pack were involved in the depredations as well. That timeline cites GPS collar data, which showed 'some wolves from the Copper Creek Pack were in the area' where the depredations took place on May 24 and 25. A CPW spokesperson did not give a specific answer when asked by OL whether this collar data might indicate that multiple wolves from the Copper Creek Pack were involved in the Pitkin County depredations in May. The spokesperson clarified that 2405 was 'a member of a pack determined to have met the definition of chronic depredation' and said CPW would post a full report with more information soon. '[This] is not something that we take lightly,' CPW wolf conservation program manager Eric Odell said in Friday's news release. 'Removal of animals early in the restoration process is a balance between managing populations of wolves, while also assisting landowners in resolving ongoing conflicts with wolves.' CPW also noted in Friday's announcement that it is currently monitoring four potential dens across the state, and that more pups will likely be born this spring. That should bring Colorado closer to its eventual goal of a self-sustaining gray wolf population, while at the same time giving wildlife managers more GPS-collared wolves to keep track of. There are currently 23 collared wolves roaming the state, and their movements are updated monthly in a map maintained by CPW. In many ways, the Copper Creek Pack has embodied how complicated and contentious Colorado's wolf restoration process has been. The pack was formed by two of the 10 wolves that were initially brought over from Oregon and released in Grand and Summit Counties back in December 2023. The mating pair established a den in Grand County that winter and gave birth to five pups the following spring. Read Next: Coloradans Who Oppose Wolf Reintroduction Can't Agree on How to Try Ending It Conflicts soon followed. Between April and July 2024, as wolf advocates celebrated the pack's formation, CPW confirmed multiple livestock depredations by the pack's two adult wolves. Ranchers in Grand County pleaded with both the state and the federal government to lethally remove the wolves, but their requests were denied. Although CPW's policy director told commissioners at one point that the adult pair had caused 'the main issues in depredation' among all the wolves that were relocated there from Oregon, the agency ultimately decided that killing the two breeding wolves would be 'irresponsible' and could hamper its larger recovery goals. CPW chose instead to capture and relocate the Copper Creek Pack in September. The male wolf died soon after capture, and one of the pups eluded officials, while the remaining four pups and the female were trapped and held at an undisclosed facility for several months. The five Copper Creek wolves were then re-released this last winter along with the 15 additional gray wolves that were translocated from British Columbia to Eagle and Pitkin Counties in January. At the time of the Copper Creek Pack's capture last fall, CPW acknowledged that relocation was not how it planned to handle those types of conflicts going forward. Ranchers, meanwhile, expressed their concerns that by relocating the wolves, wildlife managers were simply moving the problem instead of solving it. Read Next: Colorado Parks and Wildlife Releases Second Batch of Wolves Amid Threats, Rumors, and Growing Controversy 'By refusing to manage problem wolves, CPW has allowed livestock depredations to continue unchecked, while fostering a pack of depredating wolves,' read an August 2024 letter from the Colorado Cattlemen's Association to CPW director Jeff Davis. 'Pups from these problem wolves will be trained to 'hunt' and survive off livestock.'
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
CPW lethally removes gray wolf in Pitkin County
PITKIN COUNTY, Colo. (KREX) — On Thursday, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) lethally removed gray wolf 2045 in the Copper Creek Pack for chronic depredation in Pitkin County. The decision came after CPW determined that livestock producers, despite implementing non-lethal deterrence measures and removing attractants that lured in wolves, had experienced chronic wolf depredation. The agency confirmed four depredation events between May 17 and May 25 and will continue to monitor the Copper Creek Pack for behavioral changes. CPW documented the following timeline of events between May 17 and May 25 for the Copper Creek Pack wolf: Friday, May 23: CPW found evidence that a gray wolf killed a calf on private property. Saturday, May 17: Wolf-caused injury found on a calf on private property. Saturday, May 24: CPW found evidence that a gray wolf killed one calf and injured another on private property. Sunday, May 25: CPW found evidence that a gray wolf injured a cow and a calf on private property. For all events, CPW used collar data cross-reference to indicate that a gray wolf or wolves from the Copper Creek Pack were in the area at the time. On May 25, CPW determined that the events met the definition of chronic depredation before plans were implemented to gain landowner permission and safely remove the wolf. 'The decision to take lethal management action was very difficult,' said CPW Director Jeff Davis. 'Our wildlife biologists and officers constructed a timeline of recent events that shows the depredation behavior met the conditions for chronic depredation that were defined earlier this year. We have great respect for these animals and take the removal of a wolf very seriously. Removal of problem animals is unfortunate and rare, but consistent with the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan.' Chronic depredation is the frequent and consistent injuring or death of a producer's livestock or working dogs caused by the same wolf or wolf pack within 30 days. CPW determines four factors to determine the lethal removal of wolves that display signs of chronic depredation. These factors include documentation of chronic depredation, previous use of non-lethal removal techniques, the likelihood that the depredation will continue without lethal removal and if any attractants have been used to lure wolves to the location. 'We are committed to the success of gray wolf restoration in Colorado while also minimizing impacts to livestock producers,' Davis said. 'CPW's management action is intended to change pack behavior by discouraging continued targeting of livestock as a prey base while also leaving the pack with the best chance of reproductive success in the future. Wolves in the pack are collared and CPW will continue to closely monitor the pack's behavior to determine if behavior has changed.' CPW has shared in a press release that it will not share the location of the remaining pack members or the operation; however, the agency will monitor the location and behavior of the remaining Copper Creek Pack wolves in addition to working with local livestock producers on non-lethal conflict tools to reduce potential future conflict in the area. CPW will post a final report on its website once the investigations of the Copper Creek Pack are complete. More information about the Colorado Gray Wolf Restoration and Management Plan or Proposition 114 can be found on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Colorado Parks and Wildlife kills grey wolf in Pitkin County after attacks on livestock
DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife killed a gray wolf in Pitkin County following recent attacks on livestock, according to a press release on Friday. CPW said that the wolf was identified as wolf 2405, a member of the Copper Creek Pack. The decision came after reports of chronic depredation, even after livestock producers had utilized all reasonable non-lethal methods to deter the wolves from their animals. Orangutan escapes exhibit after a 'malfunction' at Denver Zoo Between May 17-25, four depredation incidents occurred, which included three by clear and convincing evidence, according to CPW. The agency will monitor the Copper Creek Pack to see whether the lethal removal affects the behavior of the remaining pack members. 'The decision to take lethal management action was very difficult,' said CPW Director Jeff Davis. 'Our wildlife biologists and officers constructed a timeline of recent events that shows the depredation behavior met the conditions for chronic depredation that were defined earlier this year. We have great respect for these animals and take the removal of a wolf very seriously. Removal of problem animals is unfortunate and rare, but consistent with the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan.' Although the removal occurred, CPW said it is still determined to find a balance between supporting the wolves and the livestock producers symbiotically. 'We remain committed to both wolf restoration and to Colorado's livestock producers,' Davis said. 'We have been focused on improving our communication and coordination with the agricultural community. The producers in this area have been working constructively with CPW on deployment of multiple non-lethal conflict mitigation efforts. The intent of this management action is to discourage other pack members from unnaturally shifting to livestock as their primary source of food. This action will help ensure that wolves and packs that are targeting natural prey serve as the foundation for a sustainable population. Most of the wolves in the state are sticking to natural food sources and avoiding livestock conflicts.' Not the first preferred choice when dealing with the wolves, CPW said that the events from the May incidents matched the criteria for chronic depredation in the CPW Wolf-Livestock Conflict Minimization Guide. Chronic depredation is defined as three or more depredation events within a 30-day period. The incidents occurred during times, including: May 17 Injury to one calf May 23 One calf deceased May 24 One calf deceased, one calf injured May 25 One cow injured, one calf injured 18 abandoned rabbits found by dumpster in Golden CPW staff immediately began to investigate whether the incidents met the definition of chronic depredation and came to a conclusion on May 25. Plans were then made with a landowner to remove the wolf as soon as possible. Livestock producers can receive the fair market value of the animal lost in the depredation events if a claim is submitted. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
