The wolves did what they were asked to do and were victims of their own success. The loss of this beautiful family group is unforgivable and shameful.
Image: patrice schoefolt/Pexels
A brief introduction and an interesting cryptic telephone
call
Like many people across Colorado and around the world, I’ve been
eagerly waiting to learn more about Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s
(CPW) operation to capture and relocate the individuals comprising
what has come to be called the Copper Creek pack—a tight knit family
group consisting of a mother, a father, and their four children.
On Friday August 23, 2024, before the CPW operation was announced, I
received a cryptic phone call from someone out of state who asked me
a number of questions including: Would I be okay if some wolves were
killed to save others, to which I answered no, killing is off the
table. I also was asked if I would support trapping and relocating
wolves from where they were causing a problem and I said I'd prefer
that they were left alone, but if that wasn't an option and they had
to be relocated the entire pack had to be kept intact and they could
only be moved to another wild location.
Thinking back on this phone call, I felt like was being played,
being tested, because the person who called well knew my position of
leaving the lupine family alone and had to know what I'd say.
When the announcement of the trapping and relocating operation was
made on August 27th, I once again thought about the surprising phone
call and it felt as the caller knew something was coming down the
turnpike and was warning me, offering a premonition of what was to
come, and wanted to see if perhaps I'd change my views.
We now know the Copper Creek pack made their den on the property of a rancher who wanted them dead, but was denied a chronic depredation permit because they did little to deter the wolves from preying on their sheep, and perhaps even encouraged it by leaving unburied carcasses in an exposed ‘kill pit.’
Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE, including: