It’s been a few months since our last Colorado Outdoors Podcast episode, and that’s because we’ve been pretty busy here at Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In December, CPW staff captured 10 gray wolves from Oregon and translocated them to Grand and Summit counties in Colorado.
With the successful release, CPW fulfilled the will of the voters who passed Proposition 114 in 2020. These wolves will be managed under the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan, which was unanimously approved by the Parks and Wildlife Commission in May of 2023.
Ultimately, CPW plans to recover and maintain a viable, self-sustaining wolf population in Colorado while balancing the need to manage interactions between wolves, people and livestock.
This project marks another milestone in the long CPW tradition of species recovery in Colorado.
While the wolf reintroduction story could take up multiple podcast episodes, we narrowed our focus in this episode to take listeners behind the scenes and into the minds of our staff and give you their perspective on the capture process in Oregon and from the release sites in Colorado.
The episode starts with audio from Oregon of one of Colorado’s new gray wolves howling in her crate the night before being translocated to Colorado. Then, listen as we are joined by Wildlife Research Scientist Ellen Brandell, Wolf Monitoring and Data Coordinator Brenna Cassidy, Wildlife Veterinarian Pauline Nol and Public Information Officer Rachael Gonzales about their experience on the capture team in Oregon.
Then, we pivot to Eric Odell, the Wolf Conservation Program Manager, and Reid DeWalt, the Assistant Director for Aquatic, Terrestrial and Natural Resources branch of CPW, as they take us through the releases in Colorado.
Podcast hosted by John Livingston, Southwest Region public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Produced by Rachael Gonzales, Northwest Region public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Art19 is the host platform and people can also find the podcast online at https://art19.com/shows/colorado-outdoors.