Gray wolf relocated from New Mexico back to Colorado

New Mexico’s Game and Fish Department helped send a gray wolf back to Colorado Thursday.

The young, male wolf identified as gray wolf 2403 had wandered from Pitkin County, Colorado, into New Mexico, likely looking for new territory and a mate. The wolf was relocated to Grand County, although the specific release location has not been shared publicly. 

“We are grateful to our partners at the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish for their efforts to capture and return a member of Colorado’s gray wolf population,” acting Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Laura Clellan said in a statement. 

Gray wolves were killed out in Colorado in the 1940s, until a Wyoming wolfpack migrated to the state in 2019. Voters approved reestablishing the species in the state in 2020, and Colorado began reintroducing gray wolves west of the Continental Divide in 2023.

Gray wolf 2403 was born into the Copper Creek pack, the first wolfpack established in Colorado by translocated wolves. Its parents were captured in the wilds of Oregon and relocated to Grand County, where they established a pack early last year. 

After livestock attacks connected to the pack, Colorado Parks and Wildlife captured the wolves and placed them in a wolf sanctuary in the summer of 2024. The adult male, 2309-OR, had been shot before the state effort to capture it and died in captivity. The adult female and four yearling pups were released in January. 

Gray wolf 2403 left the pack in fall. A wolf making dispersal movements to find new territory and a mate like gray wolf 2403 is a sign of the biological success of the program, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Luke Perkins. 

Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah have a legal agreement that Colorado wolves who wander outside of the state will be relocated back within Colorado. This is the first time since Colorado’s wolf reintroduction began that the agreement has been used, according to Perkins. 

“We recognized during the planning process that we would need to have consideration and plans to protect the genetic integrity of the Mexican wolf recovery program, while also establishing a gray wolf population in Colorado,” Colorado Park and Wildlife’s Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell said in a statement. 

New Mexico, Arizona and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife have been working to recover an endangered gray wolf subspecies, the Mexican gray wolf, in the two Southwest states since the 1990s. 

A coalition of advocacy and conservation groups have taken issue with gray wolf 2403’s relocation. 

“A single northern wolf crossing into New Mexico is not a genetic threat to the Mexican gray wolf,” Nico Lorenzen, a wildlife associate with conservation group Wild Arizona, said in a statement. “What is a threat and waste of limited management funding is the continued effort to police wolf movement along state lines instead of following robust science.” 

Some conservationists have advocated for allowing gray wolves in Colorado and Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico to mingle. 

“The Mexican wolf population here needs genetic diversity,” said Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Gray wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, although the federal government has attempted to delist the species, inspiring lawsuits from conservation and advocacy groups. In November, U.S. Fish and Wildlife declined to create a nationwide recovery plan for gray wolves, igniting fresh legal challenges. 

The Mexican gray wolf has a much smaller population than the gray wolf, and a recovery plan is in place for the subspecies.