Boulder mags: any wolves in the area?

[smmokan]

Last week my two labs decided to chase some coyotes (or wolves) down in South Boulder near the Flatirons after we got the snowstorm. I've seen the coyotes in my neighborhood out in Erie, and they're pretty scrawny and smaller. The animals my dogs chased were very healthy and large- a lot like a full-bodied German Shepherd or bigger. I could have sworn they were wolves, but I am fairly certain there aren't any wolves in our area. Does anyone know differently?

[CUBUCK]

Last week my two labs decided to chase some coyotes (or wolves) down in South Boulder near the Flatirons after we got the snowstorm. I've seen the coyotes in my neighborhood out in Erie, and they're pretty scrawny and smaller. The animals my dogs chased were very healthy and large- a lot like a full-bodied German Shepherd or bigger. I could have sworn they were wolves, but I am fairly certain there aren't any wolves in our area. Does anyone know differently?

I'm pretty sure there aren't any wolves along the front range or in CO at all for that matter. If I remember there has been a big push to reintroduce though.

[smmokan]

I remember some talk last year about wolves up near the CO/WY border, but I was just curious about the Boulder area.

[danimal's dead]

There was a wolf with a MT tag on it found dead along I-70 about a year ago.

Was it dark?

This is not a rule, but coyotes usually have lite colored fur, wolves dark.

Wild dog?

[Mr. LebowSki]

I'm pretty sure there aren't any wolves along the front range or in CO at all for that matter. If I remember there has been a big push to reintroduce though.

A few years back, my dad and I were in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. We were at about 10,500 or so and we had our blonde lab with us. After exiting the treeline and continuing up the mountainside a pair of wolves came out of the treeline barking and calling like no other. Thankfully, my dad being mr. johnny on the spot, had his camcorder handy and he got it on film. A couple of weeks later after viewing the tape numerous times, he talked to a Forrest Service member and verified what we saw was in fact wolves and that year they were reintroducing them back into the wild.

Article about wolves be reintroduced in Yellowstone and migrating South in Colorado...and being struck by a car on I-70.
http://carnivorerestorationnews.blog...-question.html

[DJMingus]

I have seen some very large coyotes up in the Flatirons. Lots of deer to eat.

[smmokan]

^^^ That's what I'm thinking too. They were fairly light in color and I think they had a longer coat, but damn they were big. Good thing my dogs didn't catch them, they wouldn't have stood a chance.

[DJMingus]

yeah, I was gonna say... coyotes are very good at luring in dogs that way. I would be very leery of letting my dog chase a coyote.

[Kevo]

There are a lot of political reasons for the Colorado Division of Wildlife to deny the existence of wolves. As far as I am aware, the state of Colorado has not admitted to the existence of wolves in the wild for quite some time- perhaps since the Greenhorn Wolf (wolf killed on Greenhorn Mountain- given the name because many believe it was the last wild wolf to live in the state) was killed in the Wet Mountains in the late 1800's.

I've spent some time leading wilderness trips that spend a few days at Mission Wolf (near the town of Westcliffe), a wolf refuge that gives captive bred wolves a place to live. Unlike big cats, wolves born in captivity can't be reintroduced into the wild because they never learn the tactics of group hunting in captivity and captive born wolves are either killed by other wolves or return to people if they are released.


I would expect that the animals your dogs chased are not wild wolves- possibly dog-wolf hybrids or captive born wolves, but not wolves born in the wild.

If you ever see a wolf up close they don't look a whole lot like any specific breed of dog- much longer snout and HUGE paws and a wedge shaped head. The front elbows of wolves also touch each other, unlike just about any domesticated dog.

So, are there wild wolves in Colorado? Quite possibly yes. There have been lots of sightings in northern ranges and also in the Elk Range and Sawatch Range. That Sangre sighting above is the first sighting I have heard of there- the Sangres are so narrow that I wouldn't have expected any wild wolves to live there. Also, I have trouble believing that wolves would have been reitroduced there because of the huge ranching community in the Wet Valley (around Westcliffe). Lots of those people are up in arms about there being a wolf refuge across the valley, so I doubt that wolves were reintroduced there or that a wolf reintroduced there has a very good life expectancy with thousands of ranchers who would be gunning for them.

Again, as far as I know the Colorado Division of Wildlife has a statute against any reintroduction. If wolves are to come back to Colorado officially, they have to come from surrounding states (read Wyoming) on their own. Aaron Ralston claimed to have come across an entire pack on the back side of Mt. Massive. I swear that I heard wolves howling in at sunrise one morning in the summer of '04 while I was on a backpacking trip the Northern end of the Mummy Range (a very remote area on the northern boundary of RMNP). A tagged yellowstone wolf was found on I-70, but some people think that it was killed in WY and driven down to CO to make some sort of political statement.

So, the question is whether or not a few packs survived in remote areas for the past hundred years or if some captive bred wolves from refuges got out and somehow survived. I know that people who truly support wolves in Colorado (such as Ken, the director of Mission Wolf) do not openly admit to any knowledge of wolves living in CO for various logical reasons.

Long entry there, but in conclusion- there could be wild wolves in CO, but probably not in Boulder.

[Cliff Huckable]

There was a wolf with a MT tag on it found dead along I-70 about a year ago.

Was it dark?

This is not a rule, but coyotes usually have lite colored fur, wolves dark.

Wild dog?

You're right. That's definitely not a rule.

[rideit]

If there are tem Naropa Institute people standing in a field masturbating, it is a wolf and not a coyote.

Wolves can be any range of color from white to black.
They often look EXACTLY like big Coyotes.
I have run into a few out riding.

[danimal's dead]

I see coyotes up here all the time, they are always lite colored, at least the ones I see.

I've had 10-20 definite wolf sitings, all were big and dark colored.

I was driving across HW 3 between Creston and Salmo BC at midnight in a blizzard last winter when an entire pack of wolves walked, not ran in front of our truck. We saw one in front of us, slammed on the breaks, skidded to a stop and the pack came across right in front of us. There were maybe 12 of them, all dark gray, brown, or black, the thing that struck me the most was the size, at first we thought they were bears and then they just kept coming and we realized what they were.

So that's where I'm coming from, I think it would be cool as chit to see a white wolf, like a giant husky looking thing.

[birdman829]

Out of curiosity, why is the state of Colorado so against reintroducing wolves? Isn't there some evidence that wolves have a positive impact on the populations of other species (including prey) in other areas where they have been reintroduced?

[Mybad!]

I believe there are two wolf hybrids running around Silverton.

[iceman]

Even in the East there a lot of animals that fit your description. Coyotes have interbred with both domestic dogs and wolves and now there is what they are calling the "Eastern Coyote" which is 80-or-so pound animal (real coyotes seldom go 50 pounds) with light grey coloring, whiter towards the chest, big standup ears, a triangular head and a fairly broad chest with a pronounced "kncked-kneed" stance in the front legs. They go about as big as a decent-sized German shepherd, quite a bit smaller than a big German Shepherd.

These animals are filling the wolf niche in the ecosystem, they took 14 of them out of a residential/semi-urban neighborhood not far from here a year ago (and only stopped because people were complaining about the slaughter, there's a lot more there). I hear coyotes about one night in three and I live 25 miles from the White House.

If they are here I have no doubt they are elsewhere, maybe that's what you saw.

[MOHSHSIHd]

The only wolves I have ever seen in the wild were in Alberta. Even at a distance of 200-300yds through a scope you can easily distinguish them from a dog. They look almost twice the size of a standard sized German Shepard.


But who knows, maybe what I saw were extra large wolves. I just don't see how you could mistake them for dogs.

[fez]

pretty simple test, did your dogs come back alive and in one piece? if yes, coyotes. if no, wolves.

[gorms]

we saw a VERY big dog when we stayed at the taggert hut. we were at a distance but the thing was big. it went straight up the slope we planned on skiing and it put my climbing to shame (as would a manatee).

we checked out the tracks and they were proabaly 4-5" wide.

not certain it was a wolf....but i wouldnt rule it out.

Out of curiosity, why is the state of Colorado so against reintroducing wolves? Isn't there some evidence that wolves have a positive impact on the populations of other species (including prey) in other areas where they have been reintroduced?

If i had to guess i would say the ranchers have probably lobbied against wolves being reintroduced here

[smmokan]

pretty simple test, did your dogs come back alive and in one piece? if yes, coyotes. if no, wolves.

Yep, they were just fine... a little tired from the chase, but unharmed.

And Phish- I didn't think they were dogs, I just said they were the size of large dogs. Just curious, that's all.

[Kevo]

But who knows, maybe what I saw were extra large wolves. I just don't see how you could mistake them for dogs.

Wolf subspecies actually do get larger the farther north you go, with Arctic Wolves as the largest on average. Pretty much all the Wolves currently in North America are subspecies of Canis Lupus, the Gray Wolf. This is one of the reasons why so many ranchers in and around Yellowstone were so upset with the reintroduction- a subspecies of wolves from Canada were reintroduced and they are slightly larger in size to what would have naturally been there. Too bad the subspecies that would have naturally been there was killed off by the government back in the day. They actually would pay people by the head.

In reality the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone did help the natural ecology from everything I've ever been told.

Red Wolves were a smaller species in Mexico and Southwestern US and some parts of the East Coast. They were much closer to the size of a coyote, but only a very small few still exist today- I think the number could be somewhere under 100.

birdman829 Out of curiosity, why is the state of Colorado so against reintroducing wolves? Isn't there some evidence that wolves have a positive impact on the populations of other species (including prey) in other areas where they have been reintroduced?

There is lots of evidence that wolves help the natural environment, but this again comes back to the ranchers as a special interest group which are hand in hand with the state and federal government. Subsidy that, grandfather your herd into this or that wilderness area, suck on this tit, etc, "Oh, and we won't let wolves get reintroduced to CO, don't worry."

Obviously this is a way oversimplified statement, but it is largely because of ranchers and also the fear that since wolves are so mobile (can move 50 miles a day quite easily) that some will move to a population center (Estes, Boulder, Junction, Denver Burbs) where the food is much easier to come by.

[montanaskier]

bit of a wolf-a-holic. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem wolf population has definately grown, a true success story. While improbable, it is not impossible that a few lone males have drifted this far south. There was a report of one in Baggs not that long ago and I personally saw a vid of what could have been one near Walden. I would say that what you saw could have been a wolf but probably wasn't. Wolf hybrid would be my guess.

[3DB]

Back in May, Jon Turner and I saw some member of the canine family near Guanella Pass that was very large. It's pawprints were as large as the handle of my whippet. Some say coyotes can get that large, but I would figure that a mountain coyote would not be at its fattest right at the end of winter. Chance of it being a wolf - low. But, there seems to be a lot of smoke and maybe a fire about this issue.

Pics here:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ight=Argentine

[The Reverend Floater]

You'll know a wolf when you see one. Period. Things are like the biggest dog you know squared.

[Adolf Allerbush]

What do you think? the one on the left or the one on the right?

[skiHOG]

i live really close to the flatirons and see a lot of coyotes, but no wolves.