Colorado Parks and Wildlife quietly added a confirmed wolf kill — a llama — to their list of wolf depredations. The news isn’t that it wasn’t the state’s first confirmed llama kill, nor was it that said llama fetched a market value of $1,200. The information was added this month. The kill was in March. The news here was the llama was killed in Elbert County in eastern Colorado, hundreds of miles from wolf activity.

If you’ll recall back in April, I reported a rancher had inadvertently trapped a wolf in Elbert County. That rancher was the focus of heat from federal wildlife authorities. I’ve spoken to him a few times and I can assure readers he had no idea when he legally set his traps there was any possibility a wolf would trip it. According to CPW, there was one other agricultural trapping permit issued to one other trapper on the same property during this time.

The agency did not notify the permit holders — either of them — after the initial March wolf kill because, according to CPW, they had no reason to believe a wolf was in the area. CPW investigated, but did not make the determination there was a preponderance of evidence a wolf-livestock depredation occurred until after DNA evidence confirmed a wolf had been in the area. That determination apparently came in October when it was added to the depredation document. Seven months to confirm a wolf kill seems excessive.

Stay up to speed: Sign up for daily opinion in your inbox Monday-Friday

CPW said they have reviewed reported wolf sightings near where the wolf was trapped and found no evidence of additional wolves in the area. Although, a spokesman said, it is common for a wolf to travel up to 500 miles, it remains unclear exactly how this wolf made it to Colorado. I’m no wildlife biologist, but I don’t suppose it hitched a ride to the Loaf ‘N Jug in Limon and trotted south.

According to CPW, landowners and others authorized by statute may be eligible for a 30-day trapping permit where certain body grip devices, cable device traps, foothold traps, etc., can be used in order to protect commercial livestock and/or commercial crop production. This was in the heat of calving season in the area, and the wolf was discovered the same day CPW confirmed the first wolf depredation of a calf in Grand County for 2024.

CPW said they were contacted when the landowner wasn’t certain he was able to correctly identify the species. It isn’t, after all, wolf country. It was not, as CPW has confirmed, a collared wolf, and it was not one of the 10 released wolves. Once DNA tests confirmed it was a wolf, it was determined to be of the Great Lakes variety. It received about as much mainstream media attention as a 6-man football game.

CPW doesn’t have a memo of understanding (MOU) with USDA APHIS Wildlife Services related to wolf management, though CPW and USFWS have a MOU as of December 2023. Wildlife Services’ National Wildlife Research Center is headquartered on the Foothills Research Campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. According to their website, approximately two-thirds of NWRC’s staff is located there. The rest of their highly specialized staff are located throughout the United States and address regional wildlife damage management issues.

CPW enjoys an MOU with Wildlife Services for many species including mountain lions and bears. In New Mexico, you may recall feral cattle were removed from the Gila National Forest by sharp shooters. That was Wildlife Services. As a friend told me, Wildlife Services knows when lethal removal is appropriate, be it lion or bear. Oh, my.

USFW, in contrast, has de-listed only 1% of the 1,600 endangered species listed on USFW’s Endangered Species list. The agency doesn’t appear to be the one to depend upon when tough decisions should be made without folding to political pressure and politics.

Former USFW director Dan Ashe is an example of the agency’s relatively recent leadership and one who maintains a great deal of influence over USFW. His name may sound familiar if you’ve seen a commercial airing featuring him urging voters to pass the proposed mountain lion ban. Please vote no.

Who knows if an MOU with Wildlife Services would improve the wolf debacle in Colorado. It could have affected the Elbert County wolf situation, but the agency’s state-of-the-art lab located right here in Colorado may have been a better avenue for the wolf’s DNA testing than out of state.

I asked CPW why they didn’t alert the landowners with trapping permits in Elbert County after a confirmed wolf kill in March that trapping should be ceased temporarily. This may have benefited the trapped wolf, but it certainly would have kept the landowner trapper off the radar of the feds. That seems like a small gesture that could have been extended without the iron curtain of communication tying the hands of field staff.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication. Gabel is a daughter of the state’s oil and gas industry and a member of one of the state’s 12,000 cattle-raising families, and she has authored children’s books used in hundreds of classrooms to teach students about agriculture.