The losses keep adding up for Colorado’s controversial wolf reintroduction program. More than half of the 25 gray wolves that have been translocated into the state since 2023 have now died, and the release that was planned for this winter was canceled amid pushback from the federal government. Two high-ranking officials at the state agency overseeing the wolf program have also left or announced plans to leave in recent months. Meanwhile, the cost of reintroduction has surged far beyond expectations, adding even more stress to a statewide budget crisis.
As the effort to restore wolves enters its third year — during an election year, no less — and as Colorado wildlife managers confront a forced pause in putting paws on the ground, it seems the voter-mandated reintroduction program is at risk of unraveling.
“I think our elected officials are now in tune to the fact that this is a broken program,” says Patrick Davis, a political consultant and the director of Colorado Advocates for Smart Wolf Policy. “And that if we’re going to go forward with this — whether it’s reintroducing new wolves or just putting more money into managing the wolves we have — Colorado Parks and Wildlife has to be more transparent about their management tactics. Because what they’ve been doing has not been working.”
Davis says he and thousands of other Coloradans are staying engaged and pushing for an end to the controversial program. (Perviously his group attempted to end Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program the same way it began, with a ballot initiative.) But with recent polls showing that a majority of Colorado voters still support wolf reintroduction, it is still a politically fraught issue in the state legislature. In light of all this, Davis believes that an extended (or indefinite) pause in the program could be the best way for state wildlife managers to find a way forward.
That means “not bringing any more wolves in,” Davis says, “so we can better manage the wolves we have on the ground, with fewer resources coming from our taxpayers.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife continues to support the voter-mandated wolf reintroduction plan. A CPW spokesperson tells Outdoor Life in an emailed statement that while gray wolf survival rates are an important indicator of the program’s success, the current mortality levels we’re seeing are “not surprising.” They say that because of the goals laid out in the state’s wolf plan — which calls for 30 to 50 translocated wolves in the first three to five years — CPW “continues to explore options for translocations” for next winter.
Bleeding Staff, Ballooning Budgets
The latest blow to Colorado’s wolf program came in late March when Eric Odell, CPW’s wolf conservation program manager, announced his retirement. Odell’s announcement came just four months after the forced resignation of CPW Director Jeff Davis, whose rocky tenure as leader of the agency was more or less defined by wolf reintroduction. (As Davis pointed out during a recent interview with Denver7, his second day on the job was the same day the state’s wolf reintroduction plan was adopted.)
CPW confirmed Odell’s retirement plans in an emailed statement and said that a nationwide search for his replacement is underway. Odell, who has been with the agency for 26 years, will retire in June.
“Eric Odell has been a valuable member of Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s team for more than two-and-a-half decades and his retirement leaves big shoes to fill,” CPW director Laura Clellan, who replaced Davis in December and was officially appointed in February, told Outdoor Life in the emailed statement. “We are grateful for the dedication, expertise, and passion that Eric has brought to the many projects and efforts he has been involved with in his time at CPW and look forward to honoring his illustrious career and celebrating this next chapter of his life.”
The agency notes that Odell was one of the agency’s foremost carnivore experts. And before he got involved with gray wolf reintroduction, his work was instrumental in conserving other native species, including black-footed ferrets and lesser prairie chickens.
Like Davis, however, Odell has often been criticized during the reintroduction process by rural residents, and especially livestock producers, who didn’t vote for wolves in 2020 but have mostly borne the brunt of wolf reintroduction. Many ranchers blamed the two high-ranking officials for the agency’s decision to relocate (and not kill) members of the depredating Copper Creek pack. That pack has been responsible for well over a dozen livestock deaths and injuries since they were captured in Oregon and released in Grand County in 2023. (The fact that these wolves were known to have killed cattle in Oregon before they were translocated into Colorado only fueled this criticism.)
Including those depredations, at least 65 domestic animals have been killed by wolves in Colorado as of August 2025, according to a study by the Common Sense Institute. This growing list includes mostly cows and sheep, but also a few working dogs. And it’s the main reason why Colorado’s wolf reintroduction has cost millions more than what voters were told to expect when they approved reintroduction at the ballot box in 2020.
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“The introduction program was initially projected to cost about $800,000 per year,” CSI points out in the study. “Instead, it has consumed roughly $8 million in taxpayer funds [or an average of $2 million per year] since operations began in 2021 as expenses for ‘conflict management’ and depredation reimbursements have surged.”
This included a staggering $3.5 million in government spending for fiscal year 2024-2025. And CSI expects that if wolf reintroduction moves forward as planned, that number could grow tenfold by 2030.
The bloodshed from the state’s ongoing wolf reintroduction program cuts both ways, however. And considering the current survival rates of Colorado’s translocated wolves, it’s clear the predators are having a tough time as well.
13 of the 25 Reintroduced Wolves Are Now Dead
CPW confirmed in its emailed statement to OL that of the 25 gray wolves brought in from outside the state, only 12 are still alive.
Seven of the 15 wolves that were captured in British Columbia and released in Pitkin and Eagle counties in January 2025 have died. And six of the 10 wolves that were brought in from Oregon and released in Grand County in December 2023 have died. Three of those deaths are still under investigation, while the causes of death for the other 10 wolves have been determined by CPW and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as follows:
- 1 died as a result of conflict with another wolf (2307)
- 2 died as a result of conflict with mountain lions (2303 and 2514)
- 3 died in Wyoming (2505, 2513, and 2304)
- 1 died while in captivity as a result of an illegal gunshot (2309)
- 1 died due to secondary trauma from entrapment by a lawfully set foothold trap (2512)
- 1 died from blunt force trauma from being hit by a vehicle (2507)
- 1 died from capture-related complications (2305)
CPW officials also shot two yearling wolves that were killing livestock, but only one of those wolves was found dead after it was shot. The agency now believes that the other depredating wolf could still be alive.
The 15 wolves brought in from B.C. had a 67 percent survival rate during the first six months after their translocation. This fell under the 70 percent threshold established in the state’s wolf reintroduction plan, which triggered an agency review of its translocation processes.
“CPW did conduct this review,” an agency spokesperson tells OL, but “since none of the wolf mortalities were a result of any part of the translocation process (capture, transport and release) there was no need to adjust them.”
The agency also points out that given the average life expectancy of wolves in the Rocky Mountains, this amount of mortality is to be expected.
“When wolves do not live in a pack (i.e. while dispersing), some research shows that they are at even higher risk of death,” CPW says. “Since many of the mortalities in Colorado were among translocated wolves who were essentially ‘dispersers,’ we can see that the amount of mortality we observed in Colorado in 2024 and 2025 is not surprising. As the wolf population shifts from primary dispersers to territorial wolves in packs, we may see a shift in patterns of mortality.”
Reproduction among the wolves also plays an important role in their survival, and CPW says it has confirmed at least four breeding packs across the state. Agency staff will complete an estimate of how many pups are born this spring, which will give wolf managers a better idea of the statewide population.
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Still, the relatively low survival rates among translocated wolves is at least part of the reason why Colorado is now struggling to find more animals for its reintroduction program. Every other Western state with a viable population of gray wolves, including Oregon, has turned down Colorado’s requests for more wolves.
At least one Indian tribe has also refused to give the state wolves. And now that the USFWS has blocked CPW’s plans to source additional wolves from Canada, throwing a wrench into this past winter’s planned release, the future of Colorado’s wolf program seems more uncertain than ever.
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