DENVER — A male wolf within the King Mountain Pack in Routt County died while biologists were trying to capture it to fit it with a new, fully charged GPS collar, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced on Tuesday.
CPW Acting Director Laura Clellan said all wildlife capture operations come with risks, though staff prepare the best they can. There is always a possibility that an animal does not survive the encounter, she said.
This specific operation was held on Jan. 28.
“Our staff and contractors carefully followed CPW Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) guidelines during this operation, but when the animal was delivered to CPW staff in the field from the initial capture site, it was unresponsive," she explained. "Our team initiated resuscitation efforts but determined the animal had died.”
Final results and tests from the wolf's necropsy are pending. CPW said an independent third-party veterinary pathologist was in attendance for that procedure and will confirm the exam results.
The animal, which was 3 years old, was part of the group of wolves translocated from Oregon in 2023. According to CPW's press release from the time, it was a black, 93-pound male from the Noregaard Pack. (Note: The photo at the top of this story is a different black wolf released at the same time.)
While CPW is not required to pause capture operations after a mortality, it has stopped the process until it learns more about the circumstances of this wolf's death. Beforehand, the adult female and one pup from the King Mountain Pack were captured and collared. Staff saw the pack's three other pups as well.
“It’s not yet possible to understand the long-term implications to the King Mountain Pack as a result of this mortality,” said CPW Wolf Conservation Program Manager Eric Odell. “We will continue to monitor this pack to evaluate their status and how they are contributing to the establishment of a self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado.”
Colorado uses the wolves' GPS collars to monitor their activity and movements around the state. It can also help with deploying conflict minimization resources. CPW aims to outfit collars on at least two members of each pack, per the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan. In the case of the King Mountain Pack, the collars had low batteries so CPW hoped to replace them.
Below is a map of gray wolf movements in Colorado between Dec. 19, 2025 and Jan. 27, 2026, according to their GPS collars.
CPW monitors all four wolf packs in the state which, in addition to the King Mountain Pack, also includes the Copper Creek Pack, the One Ear Pack in western Jackson County and Three Creeks Pack in Rio Blanco County.
Denver7 was the first to bring you the update about Colorado's three new wolf packs in July.
The following day, CPW released a video from a trail camera that showed pups in the King Mountain Pack.
Watch that video below.
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. The timeline starts with our most recent story.
Denver7 in-depth wolf coverage
The below list outlines an overview of the known wolf population in Colorado:
- Five 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, and a fifth died during a re-collaring operation in February 2026)
- Three 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 and a second male was shot for the same reasons in September 2025)
- 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 and 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)
- Unknown number of pups born in four packs in 2025
- Two uncollared wolves that moved south from Wyoming several years ago and have been in and out of the area. It is not clear if they are alive or still in the state.
- One uncollared wolf that was last known to be in northwest Moffat County in mid-February 2025. It is not clear if it is alive or still in the state.
- Possible, but unconfirmed, wolf in the Browns Park area as of February 2025. It is not clear if it is alive or still in the state.