Colorado Parks and Wildlife said Thursday that staff and contracted agents killed an uncollared female yearling wolf from the One Ear pack after confirming she had been killing livestock in Grand County.

Three wolves from three separate packs have been killed in the past three days, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Their deaths bring Colorado’s two-year wolf mortality total to 20.

Rancher Shawn Foster told Colorado Politics on Tuesday that wolves from the One Ear pack killed at least three of his calves — with additional calves missing — over the previous 10 days. His ranch sits along the Grand—Jackson county line.

This is the second yearling from the One Ear pack that was killed by CPW staff in just over a month.

A CPW statement said the yearling wolf was killed as a management action after continued depredation during an evaluation period following a previous removal on Aug. 4, despite producers using all available nonlethal deterrents. The agency said the action aligns with its statutory and regulatory authority and its administrative directive on chronic depredation.

CPW officials said they hoped the August removal would curb the pack’s behavior, but it did not. The statement added that CPW’s directive on chronic depredation calls for an incremental approach to removals when depredation continues during the evaluation period after an initial operation.

CPW believes the wolf killed Wednesday was responsible for seven livestock deaths that occurred after the first removal from the pack, despite ranchers using nonlethal deterrents — tools some producers have told Colorado Politics do not work.

CPW said it “continues to work with producers to implement non-lethal deterrents and continually evaluates new non-lethal tools and techniques to reduce conflict between livestock and gray wolves in NW Colorado.”

CPW’s Luke Perkins said the agency chose to go after the yearling wolves instead of the mating pairs because the agency hoped to influence “pack behavior while keeping the pack together,” minimize impact on pup survival and not displace pack members “into new areas that may increase conflict risk.”

But killing yearling wolves may not solve the problem, according to Carter Niemeyer, who retired in 2006 from U.S. Fish & Wildlife, where he had been a recovery coordinator for Idaho.

Niemeyer, an expert trapper, was a key member of the federal wolf reintroduction team in Canada and Yellowstone National Park. That included killing wolves when necessary.

He told the Fort Collins Coloradoan this week that “The yearlings aren’t the problem; the breeding pairs are mostly the hunters and leaders of the pack doing the killing.”

CPW’s wolf depredation website shows that wolves have killed more than 120 livestock over the last three years, but in the last 45 days alone, they’ve killed 27 sheep and cattle.

That includes seven lambs on Monday in Rio Blanco County.

Rancher Tim Ritschard of Middle Park Stockgrowers said CPW is “just kicking the can down the road.” He cited how the agency handled the Copper Creek pack, which originated in Grand County.

CPW has had to lethally remove several of the yearlings from the pack, born in 2024. The female of the mating pair has mated with another wolf, and Ritschard said she’s teaching the new pack to hunt livestock, too.

“Something needs to change,” he said.

Ritschard said CPW’s approach is a no-win situation for producers, “because we’re still losing livestock, and no-win for the wolves, because they’re removing wolves from the landscape.”

CPW’s depredation criteria, to lethally remove wolves that have killed three livestock in 30 days, doesn’t work either, he said.

Ritschard also noted that the newest pack, Piney Ridge, which moves between Grand and Eagle counties, has also started killing livestock. They’ve had three confirmed depredations, and the rancher who lost those livestock is still hunting for other missing cattle.

Ritschard said CPW decided to haze the wolves rather than kill them.

“CPW needs to go at this differently,” he added.