The recent roadblock thrown in front of Colorado’s voter-mandated wolf reintroduction by the Trump administration may force state wildlife officials to find a new source of wolves, just months before the next planned releases this winter.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife had contracted again with Canada for wolves to bring to the state after finding few willing sources within the United States. But a letter sent to CPW by the new head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month warned that doing so would violate a legal agreement between the two agencies.
The letter was the biggest indication yet of a major change in the federal executive branch’s stance on Colorado’s wolf reintroduction since President Donald Trump returned to office. In fact, it marked an about-face from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s position just last winter — leading several wildlife advocacy groups to say the new position is simply political.
“This is just plain politics and trying to throw sand in the gears of progress,” said Tom Delehanty, a senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office.
If CPW cannot use Canadian wolves and cannot find another source for this winter’s releases domestically, the delay would be a win for many of Colorado’s ranching groups. For more than a year, the groups have pushed for a pause in releases to allow the state to implement more conflict mitigation programs.
“That is ultimately our stance — it’s not to end the wolf program, it’s simply to take a breather,” said Erin Spaur, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association.
Before the recent shift, the federal agency had consulted with CPW on the most recent wolf release last winter, as well as on the contract signed this month between CPW and the British Columbia provincial government that would provide more wolves this coming winter, CPW spokesman Luke Perkins said. The agency has complied with all state and federal laws, he said.
Amid the uncertainty, CPW is evaluating all potential sources for this winter’s release, Perkins said. In the past, the agency struggled to find a state in the Western U.S. that was willing to help with the reintroduction program.
CPW and Gov. Jared Polis’ office are talking with the Department of the Interior about the letter, governor’s spokesman Eric Maruyama said.
“The state of Colorado and Colorado Parks and Wildlife are committed to fulfilling the will of Colorado voters and look forward to the continued reintroduction of gray wolves in line with the (management plan) unanimously adopted by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission,” he said.
Does letter characterize law correctly?
The Fish and Wildlife’s Oct. 10 letter alleges that Colorado is obligated to source wolves for its reintroduction from the areas in the American West where they are not listed under the Endangered Species Act: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the eastern thirds of Oregon and Washington. The letter cites the original agreement between the federal agency and CPW that gives the state agency the authority to manage wolves here, called a 10(j) rule.
But that’s not what the rule states.
In the document’s section titled “Release procedures,” it says CPW officials “plan to capture wild gray wolves in cooperating States in the Western United States where wolves are federally delisted.” The rule document later states that those areas are the “preferred donor population” but does not implement any requirements or rule out alternate sources.
“The 10(j) rule just doesn’t say what they claim it says,” Delehanty said of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s new letter.
Another document from the FWS also states Colorado can source wolves from other places outside the Rockies. The environmental impact statement that accompanied the 10(j) rule says wolves in the Great Lakes region can be an option if wolves from the Western U.S. are not available, though it doesn’t say anything about international sources.
The state’s wolf plan doesn’t contemplate Canada as a potential source — but it also does not require a specific source. It states that the reintroduction “will be undertaken by CPW in cooperation with Federal agencies, potentially affected Tribes, and the states of Idaho, Montana and/or Wyoming from which wild wolves will be transferred via agreement. … In the event that none of these three states can serve as source sites for wolf donor populations, CPW has also begun to explore an agreement with the states of Washington and/or Oregon.”
More indications of politics
Republican politicians — and some Democrats — have taken up the ranching communities’ opposition to the reintroduction.
Greg Lopez, a former short-term congressman who is running for the Republican nomination in the 2026 Colorado governor’s race, has sent several letters to Fish and Wildlife Service leadership challenging the reintroduction. In September, he and the heads of the Colorado Outfitters Association and the Colorado Wool Growers Association sent a letter to the regional FWS head asking for a pause in the reintroduction.
In October — after CPW had already received the FWS leader’s letter — he and several livestock and hunting organizations sent another letter challenging the importation of Canadian wolves.
The author of the FWS letter to the state agency, Director Brian Nesvik, previously led the Wyoming Game and Fish Department before his confirmation as head of the federal agency in August.
He was the head of the Wyoming wildlife agency in 2023 when the state’s leadership forcibly rejected the idea of allowing Colorado to capture wolves there for reintroduction. Nesvik’s tenure also included overseeing a controversial incident where a man ran down a wolf with a snowmobile before taping the injured animal’s mouth shut for posed pictures at a bar.
The man then killed the wolf. Nesvik’s department issued the man a $250 fine, which wildlife advocates criticized as too lenient.
Previous sourcing of wolves
Earlier, Colorado officials struggled to find a state in the Western U.S. that would provide them with wolves for the reintroduction program set in motion by voters through a 2020 ballot initiative.
The first batch of 10 wolves — released in December 2023 — came from Oregon. CPW officials had first asked Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for wolves but were rejected. They also spoke with Washington state wildlife officials, who at the time said they could not provide wolves for the first release but indicated that they were open to further conversations.
CPW in 2024 struck a deal with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington, but the tribes backed out after speaking with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, which has reservation land in Colorado.
The agency then turned to British Columbia, where it captured 15 wolves before releasing them on the Western Slope in January. The wolf management plan calls for the release of 30-50 wolves over a three- to five-year period, and wildlife officials have previously said this winter’s release could be the last.
Twenty-one collared wolves currently roam Colorado, and at least 10 pups were born this summer in the state’s four named packs.
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