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.
Wolf tracked to watershed that includes parts of Jeffco, Denver: CPW map
“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…