Colorado wolves kill 8 sheep in largest attack since reintroduction
Corrections and clarifications: Carter Niemeyer said, "If there is no negative reinforcement to the wolves, the behavior they are showing is not unusual." A portion of that quote was written incorrectly in a previous version of this story.
GRAND COUNTY — A stench from rotting flesh hovered in the hot, still air, a pungent reminder that death lay among the perfume of sagebrush and fresh-cut hay.
On the edge of a meadow with tidy curved rows of hay was an uncut headstone of tall grass, where one of Conway and Nellie Farrell's sheep lie rotting under the warming summer sun.
It was a reminder that not even death stops the haying season up here; the ranchers just work around it. A morbid reminder of life since wolves were released in Grand County and adjacent Summit County in late December of 2023.
The eight sheep confirmed killed by wolves on the afternoon of July 28 and five missing and presumed dead on the Farrell ranch marked Colorado's single deadliest attack on livestock since the predators were released nearby as part of the voter-approved reintroduction.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife posted the latest kills on its wolf depredation page July 31. It added a note that the investigation is ongoing.
The Farrells' death toll of livestock to wolves now numbers six yearling cattle and nine sheep since April 17, with five more added after having been missing since July 28, if found. It's likely, the rest of the sheep will not be found and/or not confirmed killed by wolves because of body decomposition.
The Coloradoan has been following the Farrell family since April when depredations by released wolves first started taking place, writing stories about their experiences and those of other Grand County ranchers where wolves have killed 16 livestock since April 2, according to the state's wolf depredation page.
"It just keeps happening,'' Nellie told the Coloradoan on July 31 while standing outside the Farrell family ranch headquarters near where she yelled at a wolf that was near her children's sheep in June. "We've done every nonlethal option, well, there is one we haven't done. We have dogs, we have flashing lights, we make sounds. We have construction workers here and we are here at the ranch headquarters every single day twice a day and the attacks on our sheep have been in broad daylight.''
Conway told the Coloradoan previously he believes all of their livestock have been killed by a pair of released wolves he identified as No. 2309, an adult gray-colored male from Oregon's Weneha pack, and No. 2312, a yearling gray-colored female without a pack name from Oregon.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife would not confirm that depredation assertion when previously asked by the Coloradoan.
Conway and other Grand County ranchers have repeatedly requested the two wolves be removed. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has refused their request, saying removal would be detrimental to growing the wolf population to its eventual goal of at a minimum 150 to 200 wolves.
That pair of released wolves gave birth to at least one pup and likely more, according to the state wildlife agency. Frustrated ranchers near the den and rendezvous site have locked their gates to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, only allowing local wildlife officers on their land to look for wolf kills.
That has made it difficult for the the state wildlife agency to determine if more wolf pups exist. The agency said the den and rendezvous sites are in difficult terrain to access. It has not made publicly available any visuals of the pup.
Unfortunately for the Farrells, the den is near their ranch headquarters, as is the rendezvous site used by the wolves for hunting in summer and fall. Both are located on public land near the Farrells' property line.
The sheep killed July 28 were found strung along a sagebrush-covered hillside next to the hay meadow that funnels wolves from the rendezvous site to the livestock.
While other area ranchers have experienced wolf kills of their livestock, the Farrells have bore the brunt of it. The hay meadow meandering along Copper Creek through the Farrells' ranch, and for whom the pack is named, has served as a killing field, a smorgasbord of cattle and sheep.
"Range riders, livestock protection dogs, fox lights, cracker shells, Critter Gitters (motion detection scar device), carcass management and night patrols," Conway Farrell said, ticking off a list of nonlethal measures he has tried with varying success. "I have done pasture movement away from major wolf corridors and have a noninjury hazing permit. What more do they want me to do?"
Colorado State Parks and other state agencies and organizations have banded together to fund nonlethal tools for ranchers to deter wolves. The Colorado Department of Agriculture and Colorado Parks and Wildlife have combined to give the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, which represents Grand County, $48,000 to fund range ridging efforts.
Tim Ritschard, Grand County rancher and president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association, said he understands Colorado Parks and Wildlife is in a difficult spot.
"Obviously, now that we are having the problems we are having with those wolves, you need to remove the whole pack, including the pup or pups because the pups are going to learn to kill sheep from the parents," Ritschard said. "CPW is getting it from both sides. I think the majority of CPW doesn't want the wolves.''
Since April, there have been 23 confirmed wolf kills of livestock in Colorado. There were 20 confirmed wolf kills of livestock the three years previous to reintroduction combined.
Ranchers are compensated at fair market value for confirmed livestock losses to wolves. They argue that compensation only pays for the animal at the time of death and not for the future potential of producing more livestock and the loss of genetics.
Carter Niemeyer spent three decades killing wolves for the federal government but in recent years has turned his attention to preaching coexistence between wolves and ranchers through the use of nonlethal means. He is retired in Idaho and served on Colorado Parks and Wildlife's Technical Working Group that helped create the state's wolf recovery plan.
He understands the dilemma the state wildlife agency is in but believes lethal removal should be an option concerning the two released wolves to protect the future of the state's reintroduction program.
"Allowing a couple of wolves to continue this unacceptable behavior is a big risk to Colorado's larger wolf program down the road," Niemeyer said. "I don't see any way this situation improves because in my experience the wolves aren't going to change the behavior they established."
'They're killing the animals ... but not even eating them'
Nellie said on July 28, Conway and their kids, 3-year-old daughter Hillie Jo and 5-year-old son Shade, did chores, including bottle feeding a calf they call Orange Chicken and orphaned lambs Pinky and Sprinkles.
When they left at noon, the 37 sheep were around the ranch headquarters, which also serves as a rustic hunting lodge.
When they returned for a second round of chores at 6 p.m. and to put the sheep in their pens for the night, the sheep were gone.
Nellie said they believe the wolves came in and split the small flock of sheep. The Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs, Monkey and Blondie, they brought to the ranch two weeks ago kept one part of the flock safe. They believe the wolves chased the rest of the sheep into the hay meadow and hillside to kill.
While bears, mountain lions and coyotes play checkers, the ranchers say wolves play chess in the predator game.
"The wolves know what they are doing," said Nellie, while Hillie Jo clung to one sunburned shoulder and she bottle fed Orange Chicken with the other arm. "The sheep don't wander far from the lodge and we found a dead ewe 300 yards from the front door of the lodge and a lamb ripped in half that we had to put down by the lodge. We found more the next day at 6 a.m. They're killing the animals, one had a bite out of it and another a broken neck, but not even eating them."
Some of the rest of the dead sheep might have been eaten by the wolves, but July 31 it was difficult to tell between rapid decomposition under wool coats and after bears, magpies, crows and eagles ate their share.
Ethan Kohn, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife wolf damage specialist, is viewed by local ranchers as one of the "good guys" from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. On July 31, he had the grisly task of zig-zagging among the Farrells' sagebrush hillside, looking for the remaining sheep carcasses.
He came up empty.
He said he sympathized with the Farrells' depredation issues.
"I'm trying to help any way I can and see if we can find some missing sheep," Kohn told Nellie in the hay meadow. "It's a tough situation. I know for Conway specifically hay season is just getting going. I know this (the depredations) is on his mind a lot."
Conway had been waiting nine weeks to hear from Colorado Parks and Wildlife if he would be granted a lethal take permit of wolves, allowing him to kill a wolf caught in the act of attacking his livestock or working dogs. On July 31, he received a letter denying the permit.
Conway believes the permit is warranted after 15 depredations and multiple other livestock missing and believed killed by wolves the past 3-and-a-half months.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife denied the permit, writing he failed to meet three of four criteria to receive such a permit, according to Ritschard, who received the letter.
Those involved failing to implement in a timely fashion nonlethal strategies, to bury in a timely manner a carcass pit that lured in wolves and show that depredations would or won't continue once nonlethal strategies were implemented. The judgment on the last criteria was rendered before the July 28 depredations.
The only criteria Conway met was the continuation of depredations, according to the agency.
"They (Colorado Parks and Wildlife) wrote it (in the state wolf recovery plan) that if there are chronic depredating wolves, they would get rid of them,'' a visibly frustrated Nellie said. "We have however many sheep that have died, yearlings that have died. They are obviously depredating. So what is the government going to do?''
Wolves getting too close for comfort in Grand County
On July 25, Carly and her mother, Jani Wood, were about to give Carly's county fair show ewes a walk up the road from their house while tied behind a four-wheeler when something caught their eye.
Having never seen a wolf despite several in the area of her home that overlooks Williams Fork Reservoir, Jani wasn't sure what she saw up the hill about 150 yards from the house.
She walked to a corral to get a closer look and used her cellphone to shoot a photo for proof that the animal staring back at her was, indeed, a wolf.
"My initial reaction was my kids had just been there with the lambs," Jani told the Coloradoan on July 31. "I don’t know if the wolf was interested in the kids. Based on the activity of our neighbors and them continuing to lose sheep, it would make sense for the wolf to check out the sheep, which are real easy prey. But the big thing was for my kids' safety.''
Jani said her father-in-law chased away the wolf, which walked into a ditch and disappeared. She said she hoped the wolf wouldn't return but knows it inevitably will.
"I want to feel safe in my home," she said. "I’m not somebody who lives in fear. It’s our job to take care of these animals and we take that very seriously. I don't want all the wolves gone, but specifically these two need to go."
Carly, 12, said she was concerned about her ewes because it was two weeks before the county fair and she had a lot of time and money invested in her sheep.
"I was kind of scared because I’d been up there 10 minutes ago with my sheep and that’s what the wolves have been after the last couple of days," she said. "It was walking where my brother had been camping a week ago. But mostly I was worried for my animals. I felt like it was waiting for us to leave because we were going to take my ewes up to the hay meadow where they would be alone."
Williams Fork Reservoir, about 16 miles east of Kremmling, attracts recreators year-round but especially in summer and fall. Area ranchers have seen the wolves near the reservoir and even walking on its ice in winter.
Since 1900, there have been no reported fatal human attacks by wolves in the lower 48 states and one fatal attack in Alaska in 2010. Since 2002, there has been one nonfatal wolf attack of a human in the lower 48 states.
Wolves can pose a threat to dogs, who as fellow canids are territorial and may see a dog or dogs as competition for prey.
The North Park pack killed three working cattle dogs in Jackson County, one of which the owner was paid $15,000 for in compensation, the maximum under the wolf recovery plan.
Jani said she doubts many of those who come to the high mountain reservoir know wolves are in the area and the potential threat they pose to them or their dogs.
"I think there are a lot of people who wouldn’t camp here if they didn’t feel safe," she said. "People come out here because they want to enjoy the beauty. Some would like to see the wolves. But I don’t think they understand what the reality of that is.
"They come to the reservoir with their dogs and a housing development just over the ridge has people who have dogs. It hasn't happened yet where a wolf gets one, but it's going to happen."
Niemeyer said it appears at least the two released wolf parents have become habituated to humans. He said if the state wishes not to lethally remove the two wolves, it should at a minimum scare the wolves.
"If there is no negative reinforcement to the wolves, the behavior they are showing is not unusual," he said. "They need to apply some kind of negative reinforcement pressure so they stay away from people. If that's not done, it's only going to lead to more negative consequences for the wolves and the people involved."
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: What will Colorado do after wolves kill 8 sheep in deadliest attack?