Colorado Parks and Wildlife releases March wolf map; activity returns to Eagle River Valley

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW)released its latest wolf activity map on Wednesday, depicting where collared wolves have been in the state over the past 30 days.

After showing no activity in the Eagle River Valley in February, at least one wolf appears to have returned to the region in March, according to the report.

The map doesn’t show actual locations where the 12 collared wolves have been, instead depicting watersheds where the wolves have been.

“Watersheds are the appropriate mapping unit to display wolf activity information because wolves are far more likely to use geographic features to affect their distribution than they are political boundaries,” CPW said in its March report. “For a watershed to indicate wolf activity, at least one GPS point from the wolf collars was recorded within the watershed’s boundaries. Because a watershed indicates wolf activity, it does not mean that a wolf or wolves are present throughout the entire watershed or that they are currently in it.”

The reports are issued on the fourth Wednesday of each month.

In its January report, CPW pointed out that no wolves had traveled across I-70 despite the fact that at least one GPS point from the wolf collars was recorded within the Eagle Valley Watershed, which travels across I-70. CPW did not immediately respond to an inquiry asking if that was still the case in the March map.

CPW released 10 gray wolves onto public land in Summit and Grand counties from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22. In addition to those 10 wolves, two male wolves captured in the North Park area of Colorado in February 2023 have been fitted with collars and are part of the map data, as well.

While all 12 wolves had working collars as of February’s map report, one of the collars stopped working in March and another is only partially-functioning, CPW said.

“The animal with the failed collar is traveling with another animal with a functional collar, which currently allows CPW to monitor that animal,” according to the March report. “CPW has confirmed that the animal with the malfunctioning collar is still alive based on visual confirmation from an airplane. A collar on another wolf has been identified as partially-functional and may not be fully functional in the near future.”

There have been no wolf mortalities in Colorado and no reported livestock depredation in the last 30 days, CPW added.