An anti-wolf group’s map indicates Colorado is unfit for wolves

A coalition working since at least 2023 to stop wolf reintroduction in Colorado has a new map they say proves the state is a terrible place for wolves. But Colorado Parks and Wildlife says the map is full of inaccuracies and a biologist who’s been involved in wolf reintroduction since its inception calls it “useless and grossly misleading.”

The Colorado Conservation Alliance released a storymap of Western Slope Wolf Habitat on Feb. 21, and a spokesperson for the group said it shows “facts” that should have been revealed prior to voters choosing whether or not to pass Proposition 114 in 2020. 

Those facts are centered around Colorado’s landmass and how it “sounds like a lot of land that an introduced wolf population could thrive in,” the map’s creator, Eric Pennal, wrote on the map, but “there is more land that cannot be considered suitable than can.” 

Wolf reintroduction began after Coloradans voted for it 51% to 49% in 2020. Ten wolves captured in Oregon were released in Grand and Summit counties in December 2023 and another 15 captured in British Columbia were released in Eagle and Pitkin counties in January. In its most recent report, CPW said 29 collared wolves are ranging widely throughout the state. 

According to the agency’s wolf management plan, reintroduction is tracking in the direction of “short-term success” based on survival rates, collared wolves staying in Colorado and a collared pair mating and producing five pups in the first established pack, the Copper Creek Pack, last spring. Additional short-term success will be achieved if the wolves have a low mortality rate over the next two to three years and more collared wolves produce pups that then also pair up and reproduce. 

Mike Phillips, the biologist who was involved in wolf reintroductions in Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado, said if, by the spring of 2026, there are “maybe seven known groups of gray wolves on the ground,” and they have a population somewhere in the ballpark of 50, with multiple packs formed and reproducing, “you could argue that by the end of 2026, additional reintroductions may not be needed.” 

Tracking collars on 20 gray wolves released the week of Jan. 13, 2025 in Pitkin and Eagle counties, and six released in December 2023 show the animals moving in drainages farther south than they have been in previous months. Colorado Parks and Wildlife attributed the movement in Chaffee, Fremont, Lake and Park county drainages to a single animal. On Jan. 15, CWP confirmed a collared female from the 2023 release was roaming in Park County. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife map)

The Colorado Conservation Alliance has been advocating for a full NEPA review of wolf reintroduction, which would involve a comprehensive federal analysis of the potential environmental impacts of reintroducing wolves to the state. These reviews can take years, and if one is approved, it could stall Colorado’s wolf program before a self-sustaining population is established. 

Their effort may have come up against a roadblock, however, when the Trump administration on Feb. 20, announced intentions to reform the NEPA process to accommodate accelerated mining and drilling on public land, which could also have impacts on endangered species protections. (Wolves reintroduced to Colorado are currently protected by the federal Endangered Species Act and state law. If they were to be federally delisted, they would still remain listed as state endangered, which includes substantial penalties for illegal take, says CPW.)

But another group is actively trying to stop wolf reintroduction as well, by getting a ballot measure approved that would ask voters in 2026 to end the reintroduction of gray wolves by the end of that year. That effort reached its first milestone Feb. 19 when the Colorado Secretary of State’s Title Board approved the language in the measure. Now the group, led by Stan VanderWerf, a former El Paso County commissioner, needs to gather 124,000 signatures to get it on the ballot. 

How a map influences public perception 

When taken at face value, Pennal’s map could make people believe that Colorado’s landscape is too small, crowded and full of ecological and sociopolitical traps to sustain wolves. 

The first layer shows the state divided by counties. It then sections off the Western Slope, where Proposition 114 dictated wolves would be released. A banner running along the side says, “That alone removes 54% from Colorado’s land that can’t be counted as suitable habitat. Still sounds like a lot, but we’re just getting started.”  

On the next layer, red blotches appear, indicating Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribal lands, together totaling around 550,000 acres. More red appears over the 3.7 million-acre Brunot Agreement Area that the Southern Ute Tribe ceded to the federal government in the 1880s but where they still have rights to hunt and fish. And yet another layer shows 60-mile buffers surrounding the Brunot area and the state boundaries of Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona. 

Banners on those pages claim wolves “cannot be” on the tribal lands, they “cannot be” in the Brunot Agreement area and they “cannot be” inside those buffers.  

But Phillips said “the bipartisan plan that had been on the books for a long, long time, fundamentally said, gray wolves can go wherever they want to go, and live wherever they want to live as long as there aren’t any conflicts.” 

Conflicts in Colorado’s wolf reintroduction have occurred, with the Copper Creek Pack adults preying on ranchers’ livestock in Grand County, but CPW and the Colorado Department of Agriculture are actively working with ranchers throughout the state on non-lethal wolf deterrents now, and on Wednesday, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission approved $350,000 in compensation to two of those ranchers who experienced significant impacts to their livestock by wolves. 

Travis Duncan, a CPW spokesperson, added, “it isn’t true that wolves cannot be on tribal reservations or the Brunot Agreement Area. How wolves are managed on tribal reservations is a determination by the tribal wolf plan. CPW and the Ute Mountain Tribe have a (memorandum of understanding) that states releases will not occur within the Brunot Agreement Area, but that does not preclude wolves from moving into that area.”  

That still leaves the 60-mile buffer zones surrounding the Brunot area and the boundaries of Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona.

Regarding the 60-mile buffer around the Brunot Area, Duncan said, “during the Stakeholder Advisory Group process, it was determined that trying to buffer 60 miles from the Brunot Area would have eliminated the southern release zone in the draft Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan. CPW’s MOU with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe states that CPW will not conduct wolf releases within the boundaries of the Brunot Area.”

When asked about state buffers, he said, “it is absolutely not accurate that wolves are subject to removal within the 60-mile buffer areas,” because it “is only to preclude where releases occur. We will not conduct releases within 60 miles of the neighboring states (and reservation lands), but wolves can (and have) traveled within that 60-mile buffer. That movement does not trigger any sort of management. Wolves are tolerated anywhere (public or private lands, east or west of the Continental Divide) where they are not causing conflict.” 

“They can wander to Utah. They can wander into Wyoming. They can wander into New Mexico,” Phillips added. “Now, there may have been some kind of deal cut where Colorado has to go get them, but that deal will grow weary over time. But it’s ridiculous to say, ‘Oh my gosh. You’ve got to exclude from consideration all of Colorado that’s 60 miles from the border.’ That’s ridiculous, right?”  

The next layers of the map show habitat above 9,000 feet, which a banner says “will see occasional usage but not enough to sustain wolves” and below 9,000 — where there is good habitat, but the 60-mile buffers substantially shrink that area. 

Duncan said CPW has seen wolves use high-elevation areas in the winter, and “they will certainly use those areas in the summer when their natural prey base is there.”

“A wolf territory will be a large area that encompasses lower elevation and higher elevation areas with areas above 9,000 being used at various times throughout the year within wolf territories,” he added. Areas above 9,000 feet are considered suitable wolf habitat. “If it is suitable for elk, it is suitable for wolves.” 

The final tally  

At this point, the storymap shows the land suitable and available for reintroduction has been reduced from 103,718 square miles, or around 66.4 million acres, to 11,220 square miles, or around 7.2 million acres, the map says. 

But that land is crunched significantly because it’s encroached on by federal land. 

“Without a NEPA study, Federal Agencies can’t authorize even an Experimental Population on Federal Lands,” the text on the map reads. 

“Without an updated Resource Management Plan, individual Federal Agencies cannot authorize an introduced species onto their landscape.”  

And the final map looks like this. 

“The light blue is Federal land that intersects our initial suitable habitat. It comprises 5,320 square miles (3,405,076 acres) from our initial area of 11,220 square miles.” So “we end up with 5,900 square miles or just over 3.77 million acres of suitable habitat on the Western Slope. That is only 5.7% of available State and Private Lands and half or less of the available counties.”

Then comes the kicker map, which shows thousands of pixilated dots indicating existing grazing permits and oil and gas wells on federal lands across Colorado. 

Three wolves scatter in a snow-covered field during Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s capture efforts in British Columbia that began on Jan. 12, 2025. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife photo).

When these are accounted for, Pennal’s estimate of potential wolf habitat shrinks to just 4% of landmass, or 4,340 square miles.   

But Duncan disputed those final statements. 

He said wolves are expected to use public and private lands east and west of the Continental Divide, and saying the state doesn’t have a right to have wolves on federal lands isn’t accurate. 

And “while we have not calculated an estimate, there is far more than 4,340 square miles of suitable wolf habitat in the Western Slope,” he added. “The map story does not paint a realistic picture of the suitable habitat for wolves in the state and should not be used to support any such claims.” 

But Phillips had some advice for the Colorado Conservation Alliance. 

“If they really believe that these patterns they’ve sorted out are useful, they should publish their logic in a peer reviewed journal. They should say we believe we’ve assembled a wolf habitat suitability model, and we think the model indicates that there is insufficient habitat for a healthy wolf population in western Colorado.”

The alliance did not respond to a request for comment.