Ranchers and producers are looking to recover losses they say have been caused by the wolf reintroduction program, submitting nearly $600,000 in claims.

Meeting the year-end deadline, three producers submitted six claims, totaling $582,000. That would more than bankrupt the state’s wolf depredation compensation fund, which received $350,000 in the 2024-25 budget. Over three years, the wolf reintroduction program has cost the state more than $5.1 million. 

Between April and September, more than two dozen confirmed attacks on livestock in Jackson, Routt, and Grand counties drew only two paid claims through the state’s wolf depredation compensation fund. Those claims were small, with the largest paid claim of $1,514 for a calf in Jackson County. More are pending, with at least one waiting to be paid since last April, according to the state’s wolf depredation website.

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Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, who sponsored the legislation, noted that livestock are highly bred and valuable. Ranchers have been working on their genetics for generations, he said Tuesday.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, was the other House sponsor. She said that while she hasn’t seen the claims, she said she trusts the process will be followed and the ranchers will be compensated. “Wolf reintroduction has been very challenging for our ranchers,” not just on depredation but the emotional toll it’s taken on producers as well. “The loss of livestock is not just dollars and cents. This is their livelihood, their family tradition. They have an attachment to these animals I’ve grown to appreciate.” 

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McCluskie said she’s grateful for the work done by CPW and the Department of Agriculture on conflict mitigation, including working to hire range riders. 

But having the threat of depredation day after day is challenging for these families, McCluskie said. “I’ll be anxious to hear the outcome of these claims, yet honor the will of the voters. Reintroduction of wolves is here and I want to take the lessons learned to move toward coexistence in a way that honors our agricultural communities.” 

She pledged to uphold the pledge from the 2020 ballot measure that calls for fair compensation to producers for depredations.

THE CLAIMS

The most significant claim is for more than $400,000 and is tied to more than just wolves killing livestock. The claim form allows producers to claim wolf impacts in other areas, including reduced weights and lower birth rates for calves. The claim states that this is caused by wolves causing stress on livestock.

The claim totaling $422,000 said wolves killed 27 calves and cows, and more than 100 went missing in 2024. In addition, more than 1,500 cows showed lower birth rates and less weight, making the livestock less valuable at sale. The first producer claimed cattle weighed 40 pounds less, which cost ranchers $193,000.

Claims for lost livestock do not allow compensation for every animal. Producers can claim a percentage of those lost animals, but how that is determined is unclear. The award percentages ranged from less than 50% to 75%.

The same producer lost 15 sheep to wolves in 2024. That claim totaled more than $15,000.

None of the claims identify the producers or the counties where they reside.

However, Colorado Politics confirmed the biggest claim is from Conway Farrell of Grand County, who has reported dozens of livestock lost to or killed by wolves in 2024.

Farrell told Colorado Politics that his cattle do not spread out in the pastures and are constantly stressed because they fear the wolves. They’re not seeking ground with fresh feed and will congregate together instead of scattering in the pasture. In some places, he said, cattle must be pushed to other areas after being scared by wolves.

The change in feeding habits has resulted in lower birth weights for the calves. When the cattle are taken to market, on average, they each weigh 40 pounds lighter than cattle from a year ago. Farrell said a neighbor experienced similar losses, with cattle weighing 29 pounds less on average.

He said wolves cost the Farrells almost $600,000 in 2024, including hunting losses of $140,000. That’s not a sustainable loss, he added.

The second producer submitted two claims totaling more than $100,000. The claims were for one dead calf, a necropsy, 57 lost livestock, and low conception rates for cows.

The third producer submitted two claims totaling $42,922 for one cow lost to a wolf and for lower conception and market weights.

It’s unlikely that this is the end of claims that will be submitted to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, according to the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, which released the claim forms to the media on Tuesday.

COVERING CLAIMS

The state’s question now becomes how it can cover the claims that exceed what is available in the budget.

Travis Duncan, a CPW spokesman, told Colorado Politics the fund had $175,000 in the 2023-24 budget year that concluded on June 30 and $350,000 in the current budget year. That covers depredation payments, conflict minimization and program management.

“To date, depredation payments have been made from the General Fund appropriated to the division in the annual appropriations bill. All depredation payments approved by the commission will be paid from the most appropriate source available,” he said.

Those sources include the general fund, where budget writers are currently trying to cover a $1 billion shortfall in the state budget for 2025-26, the species conservation trust fund, the state’s “nongame game conservation and wildlife restoration cash fund,” or the wildlife cash fund, although money from hunting and fishing licenses is not allowed to be used for those purposes.

The statement from the Middle Park Stockgrowers pointed out “the financial damages associated with these three claims could have been much less had the agency taken lethal action on some of the wolves. We feel the process within the agency continues to not recognize what is happening on the ground.” 

The claims are coming in just days before the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission is set to discuss a petition submitted by 26 livestock and farming organizations, along with Colorado Counties, Inc., seeking to halt any more introductions of wolves in 2025.

CPW Director Jeff Davis recommends that the commission reject the petition. In his Dec. 21 memo to the commission, Davis claimed that introducing more wolves would reduce livestock-wolf conflicts.

“Forcing the division to halt its reintroduction efforts indefinitely — as the petition seeks to do — would frustrate the division’s ability to establish a self-sustaining wolf population while likely perpetuating the relatively high conflict rate experienced by some ranchers over the past year,” Davis wrote.

He claimed science guiding wolf reintroduction — and he didn’t cite a source for that information — says individual wolves who are not in packs “move unpredictably” and are more likely to rely on livestock as a food source.

“In contrast, once wolves form breeding pairs and packs, they will establish more predictable territories and will hunt as a group instead of as individuals and therefore may reasonably be expected to successfully prey upon elk and deer more consistently,” Davis wrote.

But that’s not what happened in Colorado in 2024. Two wolves relocated from Oregon to Grand County formed a breeding pair and produced at least four pups, known as the Copper Creek pack. Both the male and female are believed to be responsible for numerous livestock kills, leading to the pack being rounded up in September and placed in an animal sanctuary. The male of the pair died shortly after from injuries unrelated to his capture.

The female and her pups are expected to be released sometime in 2025, and potentially in the same county where the pack killed cattle and sheep in 2024, per recommendations in the state’s wolf management plan.

Davis also claimed the seven conditions cited in the petition are already being addressed. He claims CPW partnered with the state Department of Agriculture, USDA Wildlife Services, CSU Extension, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and various non-governmental organizations to address “obstacles” faced during wolf introduction.

Producers and ranchers didn’t make that list.

PROGRAM DEFICIENCIES

The stockgrowers group said Tuesday the program’s deficiencies have not been cured. And while “the division may be in the process of implementing programs, they are not in place and cannot be in place before calving season. For example, we do not know of additional range riders having been employed, and the range rider training sessions are not scheduled until April… after calving season is in process.”

Additionally, Davis wrote that an ad hoc group of a dozen, eight of whom represented pro-wolf advocates and state officials, worked to develop solutions to issues raised in the petition.

“The division’s preferred process for dealing with the petitioners’ concerns is to develop solutions based on input from diverse stakeholders rather than allowing one set of stakeholders to attempt to dictate the outcome through a rulemaking petition.”

Davis wrote that the petition also lacked legal merit.

Pro-wolf advocates cheered the news that Davis rejected the petition. Earthjustice attorney Tom Delehanty, in a statement, said, “CPW proactively tackled the livestock groups’ concerns and made the requested management changes. Because of that, and because pausing wolf releases would violate the law, we urge the CPW Commission to follow Director Davis’s recommendation and deny this stale petition.”

A statement from Michael Saul, Rockies and Plains program director at Defenders of Wildlife, said, “Director Davis and CPW staff have shown great leadership throughout this first year of wolf reintroduction. For the best chance at success, Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program must continue as planned without hindrance, and that includes increasing pack stability and genetic diversity by introducing new wolves, those from British Columbia this winter included.”

That’s not all on the commission’s plate for its meeting on Jan. 8 and 9.

The ad hoc group, along with the division, the attorney general’s office, and US Fish & Wildlife, also developed a definition of chronic depredation that producers say will make it nearly impossible to take action against wolves that chronically attack livestock.

The definition comes a year after the Oregon wolves were first released in Grand and Summit counties. It’s more than eight months after wolves that came from packs with a history of depredation in Oregon started killing livestock in Grand County.

Chronic depredation would be defined as “three or more depredation events caused by the same wolf or wolves within 30 days, provided there is clear and convincing evidence that at least one of the depredation events was caused by wolves,” according to the CPW document to be presented to the commission next week.

The division will conclude that lethal removal is appropriate so long as the producer has implemented “all non-lethal deterrence measures identified in a site assessment” and removed “any attractants” that could lure wolves to the site. Lethal removal would be handled by CPW or U.S. Fish & Wildlife, although if that isn’t possible, the document indicates producers could apply for permits.

That’s already been tried by Don Gittleson in Jackson County, whose permit was denied a year ago by CPW, even after wolves that migrated from Wyoming killed more than a dozen livestock on his ranch and that of a neighbor as well as four working cattle dogs. According to the Colorado Sun, one wolf killed seven of Gittleson’s cattle.

Pro-wolf advocates have claimed producers leave carcasses as a lure to wolves instead of burying them or taking the carcasses to landfills. Most counties where wolves have been introduced don’t have landfills, such as Grand County, or don’t accept carcasses, including Routt County.

Ranchers say burying carcasses isn’t an option when the ground is frozen, which in the high altitudes of the Western Slope can take until July to thaw.

Of the 16 confirmed wolf depredations listed by CPW in 2024, 10 occurred between April and June.

In Oregon, where Colorado’s 2024 wolves came from and which dealt with 75 reports of wolf attacks on livestock in 2024, the definition in state law says four “confirmed qualifying incidents of depredation by wolves upon livestock or working dogs within a consecutive six-month period.”

In Washington State, depredation is six confirmed wolf depredations within four months by the same wolf or wolves.

Producers claim CPW staff does not show up soon enough to investigate livestock attacks that would determine that a wolf caused the death or injury.

Farrell said sometimes it takes a six- to eight-hour horse ride to reach some of the livestock carcasses, and by then, other predators, such as coyotes or bears, have scavenged them.

The definition also contrasts with how CPW manages other predators, such as mountain lions. Over the weekend, CPW staff killed a mountain lion that killed two goats in Longmont and was suspected of killing others.

Tim Ritschard, who heads the Middle Park Stockgrowers, told Colorado Politics that the definition raises many questions.

“What does events mean? If a wolf kills animals on three different ranches in a 24-hour time frame, is that still only considered one event? Fourteen sheep were killed in one day, and per this, that would only be one event,” he said in an email Tuesday.

“Compared to other states, it looks like ‘chronic’ is harder to reach,” Ritschard said. “When they talk about attractants, does that mean a baby calf being born is an attractant? It also seems they have changed from 51% preponderance of evidence to clear and convincing evidence.”

He promised to bring those questions to the commission next week.