![]() “My hope and my philosophy is really that we will learn to live with wolves and not against wolves,” said Dan Gibbs, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Once the wolves establish an area where they will live, the agency will work with people living nearby to minimize conflict, state officials said. State wildlife officials will keep an eye on the released wolves’ locations, though the collars do not transmit real-time data. “It’s a pretty majestic thing, a pretty awesome thing to see,” he said of watching the wolves run over the hillside after their release. Wildlife officials considered the availability of prey as well as proximity to airports and ease of access when it chose five potential release sites on state land in Grand, Summit and Eagle counties. ![]() The wolves were flown to Colorado early Monday morning, Odell said. Video from CPW shows the tranquilized wolves - their eyes covered with blindfolds and tongues lolling out of their mouths - laid out on tarps while staff members took measurements and checked their teeth. The helicopters then transported the wolves to a processing area where veterinarians and biologists checked their health, took blood and tissue samples, and fitted them with radio collars. (Photo provided by Colorado Parks and Wildlife) 17, 2023, before releasing it onto public land in Grand County, Colorado, on Monday, Dec. ![]() Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff members check the teeth one of five gray wolves captured in Oregon on Dec. Once located, teams in helicopters shot the wolves with tranquilizers. Two teams in Oregon used low-flying, fixed-wing planes to look for wolf tracks and analyze data from the wolves’ collars. And moreover, this is a source of hope not only for all of us standing here but for our younger generations as well.”Ĭolorado wildlife officials worked from dawn to dusk Sunday to capture the five wolves, said Eric Odell, CPW’s species conservation program manager, during a news conference Monday night. ![]() “Of doing something to stave off the biodiversity extinction crisis we are living in … to make a difference in this era of extinction. “This is a moment of rewilding,” she said. Joanna Lambert, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation biology at the University of Colorado Boulder who attended the release, lost her breath when she saw the wolves run on the forested mountainside deep in the Rocky Mountains. ![]() Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials said they would not disclose the exact location of the release in the north-central mountains to keep the canines and the agency’s staff members safe.Ĭolorado’s wolf reintroduction is the first voter-mandated reintroduction of the endangered species in the United States, where the apex predators once roamed from the Canadian border to the southwest. The wolf and four others set free Monday on state land in Grand County were the culmination of three years of work to implement a first-of-its-kind reintroduction of the controversial predator to the state.Ĭolorado wildlife officials captured the wolves in Oregon on Sunday and flew them to Colorado for release, Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced Monday evening. The first gray wolf to be released on Colorado soil darted out of the metal crate and dashed up a hill to nearby trees in Colorado’s central mountains, turning slightly as he ran to look back at the governor and other officials gathered Monday to watch the historic release. ![]()
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