DENVER (KDVR) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s latest wolf activity map shows a wolf may have strayed close to the Denver metro area in the last couple of months, but a wildlife biologist says the map can be misleading.
Gary Skiba says CPW uses watersheds to track wolf activity in the state, one just highlighted on CPW’s latest wolf activity map stretching into Jefferson and Denver counties. But that same watershed also extends far to the west into the mountains and the map doesn’t give an exact location.
“So that wolf may have stepped just over the line at the top of Loveland Pass and no further,” said Skiba.
While he doesn’t believe this wolf came down from the mountains, Skiba says it isn’t out of the question in the future. CPW’s maps show eastward movement since the start of the year, with the Denver metro not even showing on January’s map, to a large portion of the state highlighted in June’s map.
Skiba says similarly reintroduced animals, like the lynx back in the 1990s, have shown tendencies to travel a long way.
“Those animals take off, one of the lynx ended up in Nebraska,” said Skiba.
He says wolves have also shown the ability to survive in populated areas around the world, much like other wildlife you can see in the metro.
“Just think about coyotes, there are coyotes in the middle of Denver,” said Skiba.
Skiba said food is the biggest driver in where they go, so cities won’t frighten them away from deer or elk.
“The wolves get to Estes Park, it’s going to be like a cafeteria for them,” he said.
While a wolf walking down 16th Street any time soon is highly unlikely, Skiba said their eastward expansion is certainly a possibility in the future.
“Depending on how many wolves we end up with in five years, say, there are probably going to be packs of wolves that have territory on the edge of the metro area,” he said.
