For immediate release August 10, 2026
Contacts:
Delaney Rudy, Western Watersheds Project, 970-648-4241, delaney@westernwatersheds.org
Mark Surls, Project Coyote, 303-886-2141, msurls@projectcoyote.org
Delia Malone, ColoradoWild, 970-319-9498, deliamalone@earthlink.net
Colorado’s lax regulations on killing coyotes led to the death of another reintroduced wolf
DENVER — Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced this morning that they have concluded their investigation into the killing of reintroduced wolf 2504 and determined that the wolf was shot by a hunter who thought she was a coyote. Coyotes can be killed year-round in Colorado, including using methods outlawed for other species, such as leghold traps. Leghold traps set to catch and kill coyotes resulted in the death of reintroduced female wolf 2512 in May of last year, and the death of naturally dispersing male wolf in 2024. A recent report found that these traps pose a serious threat to Colorado’s wildlife.
“This may be just a tragic case of misidentification, but shows how the huge regulatory gap around coyote killing results in the death of endangered wolves,” said Delaney Rudy, Colorado Director for Western Watersheds Project. “The permissive rules for killing coyotes are a serious threat to Colorado’s wolf program and to the recovery of the endangered gray wolf nationwide.”
The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s 10(j) rule, which designates Colorado’s wolves as a “nonessential, experimental population” explicitly excludes mistaken identity from the exemption for incidental take, but the federal government has been reluctant to prosecute mistaken identity cases because of the Department of Justice’s so-called McKittrick policy, which requires the government to prove the killers intentionally took an endangered species. CPW has not indicated that they will be pursuing any legal accountability for the killing of wolf 2504.
“Since wolves returned to Colorado, I’ve been concerned something like this would happen,” said Mark Surls, Colorado and Northern Rockies Coordinator for Project Coyote. “At an individual level, there’s little difference between a wolf and a coyote — both want to be healthy and alive, both feel pain, both have families. This deadly case of mistaken identity is the predictable result of a coyote hunting season with almost no guardrails.”
“Colorado has an opportunity to demonstrate that our vision of restoring the wild, of restoring wolves, to our state is in fact attainable,” said Delia Malone, ecologist and Board President of ColoradoWild. “After the human killing of numerous wolves, the need to revamp our Wolf Management Plan to one that is fair to wolves, is obvious and urgent.”
Colorado cannot claim to champion wolf recovery while leaving the door wide open for wolves to be killed as collateral damage. CPW must shorten the coyote season and enact a zero-tolerance policy for wolf killing, intentional or not, before this happens again.
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