DENVER — Colorado’s first wolf pack since the species’ reintroduction in 2023 is once again under intense scrutiny after a series of cattle depredations in the Roaring Fork Valley.

Cattle killings in Pitkin County this summer have spurred calls in recent weeks to remove the entire Copper Creek pack — comprising two adults, three yearlings and an unknown number of pups born this year — as a threat. Cattle killings connected to the pack already prompted Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials in May to kill one of the wolves born last year.

The controversy prompted a special meeting Monday of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. Commissioners pressed CPW officials on their plan for handling the pack. But at the end of a nearly two-hour meeting, they did not make any official recommendations or policy changes.

The management plan created after voters in 2020 narrowly chose to reintroduce the apex predator delegates decisions about removing wolves from the wild to CPW, not the commission.

CPW officials said they would not yet remove the pack but were closely monitoring the collared canines — and had deployed range riders to help ward off wolves from herds.

“Setting aside the question over who’s to make the decision, we don’t think it’s necessary at this point to remove the pack,” CPW director Jeff Davis said at the meeting.

The Copper Creek pack formed in 2024 when two of the 10 wolves released in 2023 mated. The pair produced five pups, the first to be born in the reintroduction program.

But CPW removed the pack from the wild — except for one pup that evaded capture — and put them in a sanctuary after a series of depredations in Grand County last year. The pack’s patriarch died in captivity of wounds incurred while in the wild.

CPW in January then rereleased the mother wolf and four pups into Colorado’s central mountains, along with 15 wolves captured in Canada. One of the adult males from Canada in February joined the pack and mated with the female wolf. New pups were born in April, though CPW officials said they don’t yet know how many.

In May, CPW shot and killed one of the pack’s yearlings after it was connected to the killing of three head of cattle and injuries to three more across three Pitkin County ranches.

While cattle have been killed and injured since then, there have been no more incidents that CPW could definitively tie to the pack since the agency killed the yearling, said Matt Yamashita, CPW’s area wildlife manager, at the meeting Monday. Depredations are more difficult to investigate in the summer, when cattle are spread out on grazing allotments that span thousands of acres of rugged landscape, he said.

Davis, the agency head, acknowledged that “there has been continued conflict” between cattle and wolves in the area.

Ranchers in the pack’s vicinity have reported killings and injuries they believed were caused by wolves, Commissioner Tai Jacober said. One rancher said a wolf scattered his grazing herds on Friday, causing him to spend the weekend gathering them back up.

The continued conflict prompted three ranching groups — the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association — to send a letter to CPW demanding the removal of the Copper Creek pack.

“The situation is unsustainable and has caused irreparable harm — to the credibility of the reintroduction effort, to the well-being of livestock and wolves alike, and to the ranching families who steward this landscape every day,” the July 3 letter states. “(The Holy Cross Cattlemen’s Association) joins in urging the immediate removal of the Copper Creek Pack.”

It’s unclear whether that would mean relocating the wolves or putting them down.

Several commissioners on Monday said they did not want to involve themselves in the day-to-day wildlife decisions handled by CPW, like how to manage depredating wolves.

The agency makes decisions every day on how to handle wildlife incidents like a moose charging at a person or a bear killing livestock, Commissioner Jay Tutchton said.

“I don’t see how this situation is any different,” he said. “I understand why we’re here, but I guess I disagree with the entire premise of this meeting.”

Davis said he met with two of the ranchers whose herds are being targeted by the Copper Creek pack. Both, he said, had been “busting their backsides” to coexist with the canines.

“They’ve been working with us to deploy non-lethals, they sat with us and shared their stories,” he said. “They’re looking for some solutions, they’re trying to hang on to hope. That’s something I take very seriously because that’s our pathway to success.”

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