The voter-mandated gray wolf reintroduction program in Colorado is facing its most significant logistical challenges yet as the window for the third annual release rapidly approaches. Colorado Parks and Wildlife, or CPW, is currently struggling to secure a source population for the 10 to 15 wolves needed this winter, compounding the controversial nature of the four-year-old initiative.

The state’s restoration plan calls for the annual translocation of wolves for three to five years, aiming for an initial target of up to fifty individuals to establish a sustainable population in the Southern Rockies. To date, CPW has released 25 wolves, with ten sourced from Oregon in December 2023, and fifteen sourced from British Columbia, Canada, in January 2025. However, the program has recently been hit with multiple setbacks, placing the viability of the next release in doubt.

The most critical recent hurdle came from a directive by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or USFWS, which ordered CPW to halt efforts to import wolves from outside the Northern Rocky Mountain states. This federal intervention effectively scuttled a deal CPW had recently signed with British Columbia to procure another fifteen wolves, forcing the agency to search for alternatives exclusively within the American West. The USFWS cited the state’s permit under the 10(j) rule of the Endangered Species Act, arguing that sourcing from outside the designated recovery area was not permitted.

Following this federal block, Colorado turned to Washington state, but that door was also closed. The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission voted overwhelmingly in mid-November 2025 against providing any wolves to Colorado, citing a recent decline in Washington’s own wolf population, which remains listed as endangered under state law. Commissioners expressed reluctance to remove animals from an endangered list population, despite CPW Director Jeff Davis’s argument that helping establish a population in the Southern Rockies aids broader wolf recovery.

These recent refusals follow earlier disappointments in the program’s planning. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, the most logical sources within the Northern Rockies, had already declined Colorado’s initial requests for wolves in 2023. Furthermore, a deal to source animals from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Nation in Washington was rescinded in 2024. The Colville Tribes cited a failure by CPW to conduct necessary consultation with the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Tribes in Colorado, an act they deemed disrespectful to tribal sovereignty.

With the reintroduction plan’s release season just weeks away and the current population of reintroduced wolves standing at about twenty adults and yearlings, CPW faces mounting pressure from both supporters demanding compliance with the voter mandate and livestock groups pushing for a temporary suspension of further releases. CPW leadership maintains they are continuing to evaluate all options to meet the state’s mandate while adhering to the conditions of the 10(j) rule.