Colorado’s gray wolf comeback just hit a new milestone. At least 32 wolves now call the state home, more than double the count from just one year ago. But behind that growth sits a harder reality: 10 adult wolves died in a single year, over $750,000 in livestock damage has been approved for payout, and no new wolves are coming anytime soon.

Colorado Wolf Count More Than Doubles in One Year

The numbers tell a story of fast growth. Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed a minimum count of 32 gray wolves at the close of the 2025-2026 biological year, which ran from April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026.

The winter wolf count more than doubled year over year, jumping from just 15 wolves in 2024 to 32 in 2025. That surge largely reflects the January 2025 arrival of 15 wolves brought to Colorado from British Columbia, along with new pups born in the state for the first time.

Of the 32 confirmed wolves, 24 are living within four established packs. The remaining eight are dispersing adults roaming outside of any pack structure, and because not all wolves carry GPS collars, the real number could be even higher.

CPW Director Laura Clellan framed it as a sign of a maturing program. “This year’s annual report highlights CPW’s continued efforts to refine and improve our wolf program on all levels,” she said, “ranging from monitoring, to conflict minimization and compensation, and public engagement.”

Four Packs Are Growing, and the Pups Are Leading the Way

Colorado now has four recognized wolf packs. One Ear is currently the largest in the state, with nine confirmed wolves. Here is how every pack breaks down as of the latest report:

The pup numbers drew attention from CPW’s own wolf team. “Pup recruitment into the wolf population this year was very high, which is a sign of wolves’ ability to find one another, pair, reproduce, and make a go of it in Colorado,” said Eric Odell, CPW’s wolf conservation program manager.

King Mountain stands out in a way no one expected. That pack currently consists entirely of four pups with zero adult wolves recorded in the winter count. How those young wolves survive without adult support is a question wildlife managers will be watching very closely in the months ahead.

Ten Wolves Died in One Year. Here Is What Happened.

The growth story comes with a painful footnote. Ten adult wolves died during the 2025-2026 biological year, pushing the adult survival rate to just 61 percent.

Under Colorado’s wolf management plan, a survival rate below 70 percent automatically triggers a review of capture, transport, and release protocols. CPW conducted that review and concluded the deaths were not caused by those procedures, closing the review without further action.

Here is how the 10 deaths broke down:

• One legal euthanasia by CPW in Pitkin County on May 29, 2025, after chronic depredation by the Copper Creek pack
• Two legal euthanasias carried out outside Colorado on April 9, 2025 and July 23, 2025
• One death from injuries sustained during a CPW re-collaring operation in February 2026
• One death caused by a vehicle strike
• One death from entrapment
• One natural death, killed by a mountain lion
• Three deaths still under active investigation by CPW or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Pitkin County removal was historic. CPW lethally removed wolf 2405 from the Copper Creek pack after three livestock producers in the area experienced repeated attacks that met the agency’s newly finalized definition of chronic depredation. It was the first time Colorado had lethally removed a reintroduced gray wolf.

Over $750,000 in Livestock Losses and the Fight to Cut That Number

Wolf and livestock conflict remained the sharpest pressure point in this year’s report. CPW confirmed 43 total depredation events during the biological year, involving the following animals:

Direct compensation for confirmed losses reached $43,275.06. But the far larger bill came from indirect losses including missing livestock, lower conception rates, and reduced cattle weights across five separate claims. CPW approved $709,629.05 for those losses.

Combined, total approved compensation for the 2025-2026 period topped $752,000.

CPW is not sitting still on conflict prevention. The agency deployed more than 13 miles of fladry across 15 locations in Pitkin, Grand, Routt, Garfield, and Jackson counties. One key takeaway from the field: no livestock was lost during the 2025 calving season at any location where fladry was actively deployed.

Range riders proved equally valuable. Eight riders across eight counties covered nearly 15,000 miles over 4,000 hours of work, supporting 34 different livestock producers throughout the 2025 conflict season. CPW plans to expand that crew to 15 range riders for the upcoming season.

Still, Wildlife Damage Specialist Ethan Kohn was direct about the limits. “What we’re seeing on the ground is the conflict minimization can reduce risk, but it does not prevent all conflict,” he said. Even with every tool deployed, including fladry, night watch, and range riders, depredations in high-conflict areas like the Copper Creek territory continued from March 2025 all the way through April 2026.

One development with major implications for the program’s future: no new wolves were released in Colorado during the winter of 2025-2026. CPW had planned a third round of releases from British Columbia and had even begun preparations for capturing up to 15 wolves in January 2026. In October 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raised concerns that importing wolves from Canada may require a federal permit under Colorado’s existing restoration framework. CPW disagreed with that interpretation, but the releases did not move forward.

Colorado’s gray wolf story is still unfolding in real time. Fourteen pups are growing up in Colorado’s mountains right now. Four packs are carving out territories across the northwest part of the state. But the same report that celebrates that progress also documents ten deaths, $752,000 in rancher losses, and a federal relationship that is far from settled. The wolves that voters chose to bring back in 2020 are here, and they are surviving. Whether the program around them can keep pace is the question that will define the next chapter. What do you think about where Colorado’s wolf reintroduction is headed? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.