Since wolves were released late last year, Colorado ranchers have experienced six incidences of depredation affecting eight head of cattle in the state.
The latest, another calf killed by a wolf or wolves in Grand County, was added to the slate of recent cattle deaths that include four yearling cattle killed earlier this month at the same ranch.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife visited the ranch near Kremmling on Sunday morning to investigate the kill and later listed the depredation in a new document listing all historical depredations.
“It really didn’t surprise us,” Middle Park Stockgrowers Association President Tim Ritschard told 9News. Wolves have “still been in the area, and we’ve still been seeing them at night.”
Both the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association and North Park Stockgrowers Association have been asking CPW to kill the wolves responsible for cattle deaths in Grand County.
In a letter dated April 18, the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association formally requested that the wolves be classified as chronic depredators.
However, Colorado Parks and Wildlife believes that a male wolf denning with a female is responsible for the recent depredations. But CPW says that killing the male wolf “would be irresponsible management and potentially cause the den to fail, possibly resulting in the death of the presumed pups.”
Ranchers have been using nonlethal measures to try to keep wolves off their properties, but they say it doesn’t seem to be helping. Now, they are worried about what will happen when more wolves are born.
“I think the fear one year from now is — I don’t know how many pups she’s having,” Ritschard told 9News. “Say she has four to six, and we have five to seven wolves running around killing livestock. So now instead of having one or two dead a day, we’re going to find seven, eight, ten a day.”