DENVER — A new wolf pack has formed in Eagle County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) confirmed on Wednesday morning.
It has been named the Piney Ridge Pack.
“Detection of pups in late spring or early summer is inherently challenging, because of their use of remote habitats in dense cover, secretive nature of very young animals, and time potentially underground,” explained CPW’s Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell.
So while few details are currently available about the pack, more details will be released in CPW's annual wolf report, which is released each spring, CPW said. Denver7 wrote about the 2026 Gray Wolf Annual Report here.
Four of Colorado's wolf packs successfully reproduced this year, including the Piney Ridge Pack. The others are the One Ear Pack in Jackson County, the Three Creeks Pack in Rio Blanco County and the Copper Creek Pack in Pitkin County. As of Wednesday, it does not appear that the King Mountain Pack in Routt County successfully had pups this year.
Below is the latest wolf movement map released by CPW.
On average, wolves birth four to six pups each spring. Odell said his team is continuing to monitor those packs and will include the minimum count of the state's wolf population in the 2027 spring report.
When wolves create packs, CPW can better determine where they should implement conflict minimization tools and techniques to protect livestock. That includes things like fladry, scare devices and range riders. Wolves in packs typically don't disperse as much as solo wolves since they have an established territory. They also tend to have higher survival rates.
According to CPW's depredation tracker — which monitors instances where a wolf seriously injured or killed livestock or a working dog — one calf was attacked by a wolf in Eagle County this biological year, which runs between April 2026 and March 2027. It occurred on July 16. It is not yet known if the wolf or wolves involved are members of the Piney Ridge Pack or not.
Denver7 has been following Colorado's wolf reintroduction program since the very beginning, and you can explore all of that reporting in the timeline below, which starts with our most recent story.
“We are still working from a modest amount of data in Colorado — due to the relatively new nature of our wolf population as well as its small size — but so far we are seeing a clear pattern of wolves in packs surviving longer than wolves that are not in packs,” said Dr. Brenna Cassidy, CPW Wolf Monitoring and Data Coordinator. “For instance, in the last biological year (April 1, 2025 - March 30, 2026), we experienced 10 mortalities among our wolf population, seven of these were dispersers and only three were pack members. This shows us the benefit of having more packs on the Colorado landscape for both adult survival and reproduction as we work to achieve the goals of the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan. ”
Anybody who sees a wolf is asked to take photos and video, and report it using this CPW online form.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Denver7 in-depth wolf coverage
The below list outlines an overview of the known wolf population in Colorado:
- Four wolves surviving from the original 10 that were released in December 2023 (one died of a likely mountain lion attack, a second died from injuries sustained prior to his capture as part of the Copper Creek Pack relocation effort, a third wolf became sickly and died, a fourth died in Wyoming, a fifth died during a re-collaring operation in February 2026, and a sixth died in northwest Colorado the following month)
- Two wolves surviving of the five wolf pups born in the spring of 2024 (one male was killed by CPW after multiple depredations in Pitkin County, a second male was shot for the same reasons in September 2025 and a third wolf was killed by CPW in June 2026 after a series of depredations)
- Eight wolves surviving from the 15 that were released in January 2025 (one was shot and killed by Wildlife Services in Wyoming, a second died of unknown causes in Wyoming, a third died in Rocky Mountain National Park, a fourth died in northwest Colorado, the fifth died in northwest Colorado after it was likely hit by a car, a sixth died in southwestern Colorado, and a seventh died in northwest Colorado)
- At least 14 pups born in four packs in 2025: Two in the Copper Creek Pack, four in the King Mountain Pack, five in the One Ear Pack and three in the Three Creeks Pack
- Two uncollared wolves that moved south from Wyoming several years ago and have been reported in and out of North Park. It is not clear if they are alive or still in the state.
