Latest news with #PitkinCounty
CBS News
18-07-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Drought gets much worse in Aspen and Glenwood Springs as dry conditions persist across western half of Colorado
Colorado's drought situation is taking a turn for the worse, according to the latest data from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Extreme, severe, and moderate drought levels have all increased. Severe drought conditions rose by about 2%, but it's the nearly 8% spike in extreme drought that's most concerning. The worst of these worsening conditions are now centered in Pitkin and Eagle counties, where the drought status intensified from severe to extreme in just the past week. Currently, more than half of Colorado is experiencing some level of drought, highlighting the ongoing impact of a dry summer season across much of the western half of the state. The Western Slope saw particularly dry weather this past week, further deepening existing drought concerns in the region. However, there was a glimmer of improvement on the Eastern Plains — with Yuma and Kit Carson counties seeing enough moisture to ease conditions slightly, shifting from moderate drought to abnormally dry.
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
CBS News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Colorado's gray wolf reintroduction plan costs $2.2 million more than expected, agency says
Colorado Parks and Wildlife told an interim legislative committee it's spent about $3 million to relocate 30 wolves to the state over the last two years. That's more than double what voters were told it would cost when they approved wolf reintroduction in 2020. CPW Director Jeff Davis speaks before state lawmakers regarding the total costs and progress of the Colorado gray wolf management plan Monday, June 30, 2025. The Blue Book estimated it would cost about $800,000. Ranchers say, not only is the cost of the program out of control, the management of it is off the rails. "A depredating pack was known to have depredated in Oregon before they put them in Middle Park," Tom Harrington, a cattle producer in Roaring Fork Valley, told lawmakers. "They had serious impact there. They packaged them up, put them away for awhile. And then, they put them back out -- right in my backyard." Harrington and other ranchers told state lawmakers they have lost trust in CPW after it relocated a pack of wolves to Pitkin County after it killed livestock in Copper Creek. The wolves continued to kill cattle in Pitkin, resulting in CPW euthanizing one of them. "I feel [Proposition] 114, the reintroduction, should be called 'the promises made and promises broken too,'" Garfield County Commissioner Perry Will said before lawmakers. "Promises broken. Total program failure and cruelty to wolves." CPW's own wolf reintroduction plan bars the relocation of depredating wolves. "That was my decision. I take full responsibility, and I question that decision ever day," CPW Director Jeff Davis told lawmakers. Davis says he doesn't know if wildlife officers warned anyone in Pitkin County about the pack's relocation. "That said, it led to a lot of really important things," Davis said. The CPW director says the state agency has deployed drones and range riders to monitor for wolf activity, hired wildlife damage specialists and depredation rapid response teams. Davis says they're hazing wolves that get near livestock. Davis admits -- even after removing one wolf -- he's seen concerning behavior in a video and says they will remove more wolves if necessary. Ranchers and some lawmakers want the entire program paused. "I believe the governor, by his actions, set up this plane to fail," Harrington asserted. "It was rushed. There was no timely alerts. We couldn't prepare. I believe that we need no more new releases until these plans are in place and the basics are working." CPW plans to relocate another pack of wolves from Canada in December, and Davis told lawmakers he will not pause the program. The office of Gov. Jared Polis released a statement that said, "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. Governor Polis did not advocate for or support the ballot measure, but 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." Ranchers say they are also concerned about inadequate compensation. The fund created by the legislature to compensate ranchers when a wolf kills their livestock is broke.
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.
CBS News
31-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Colorado Parks and Wildlife makes "very difficult" decision to kill grey wolf in Pitkin County
Officials with Colorado Parks and Wildlife say they have killed a grey wolf in Pitkin County. The agency says the animal was part of the Copper Creek Pack and that the pack was repeatedly attacking livestock in the area between May 17 and May 25. CPW says it attempted deterrents and other non lethal hazing measures before lethally removing the animal Thursday. The hope is that the "lethal removal" leads to a change in what the pack views as its primary food source. CPW Director Jeff Davis called the decision "very difficult." "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," he said in a prepared statement. Davis said most of the wolves that have been reintroduced in Colorado "are sticking to natural food sources and avoiding livestock conflicts."
