Colorado voters passed Proposition 114 in November, which was a voter-initiated resolution that would require Colorado Parks and Wildlife to reintroduce gray wolves to the state by the end of 2023. The proposition passed narrowly, and the vast majority of the “yes” votes came from population centers such as Denver, Colorado Springs and Boulder.
On the heels of that proposition, state wildlife officers have documented three wolf pups born to a pair of wolves in Jackson County, which is the county that includes Walden, just south of the Wyoming state line.
I don’t think this is the end of the story for Proposition 114. Colorado’s governor has hinted that the state is still planning to import more wolves to the Western Slope. In his comments regarding the wolf pups, he said the reintroduction of more wolves will give these new pups more opportunities to reproduce in the future.
If you live in southern Wyoming and are a fan of wolves, this is big news. If the wolves are anything like the moose Colorado keeps importing, they won’t stick around in Colorado long. They’ll end up in the Sierra Madres and the Medicine Bow forest in southern Wyoming before too long. That’s what all the moose do – the more moose they plant in Colorado, the more moose we get in our portions of the Med Bow. And moose calves are a tempting meal for a wolf pack, so you can bet those wolves will be making their way north, if they haven’t done so already.
Be on the lookout for wolves this summer if you do any camping or fishing in those southern forests. My guess is if they’re breeding in Colorado, they’re breeding in southern Wyoming, too.
