Colorado just tapped the brakes—hard—on its gray wolf reintroduction plans, hitting pause amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration and growing chaos on the ground. According to Axios Denver, state wildlife officials reversed course on releasing more wolves this winter, offering no clear timeline for what comes next. The move is a big gut punch to a voter-approved program and highlights just how messy, expensive, and politically charged it’s become to bring an apex predator back to Colorado’s landscape—especially as ranchers on the Western Slope deal with livestock losses and tempers keep flaring.
Behind the scenes, federal wildlife officials are circling, demanding answers and threatening to take over the entire program if the state doesn’t comply—up to and including pulling Colorado’s special permit to reintroduce wolves at all. So far, 25 wolves have been relocated, 11 have died, and roughly 19 are believed to still be roaming the state. Plans to bring in more wolves from British Columbia fizzled after a federal “cease and desist,” and Washington state also said no. The bottom line is that Colorado’s wolf future is suddenly very uncertain. When the population is this small, every single wolf matters—and right now, the program is stuck in political limbo, waiting to see who blinks first.
