Six months ago, the story was dead wolves. Now it’s wolf pups — a lot of them.
Earlier this year we wrote that half of Colorado’s reintroduced wolves had died and that the program looked like it was falling apart. That was true then. But the picture on the ground has flipped, and every elk hunter in this state needs to know what’s actually happening.
Five Packs, Four With Pups
In late July, Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed the Piney Ridge Pack in Eagle County — the state’s fifth established wolf pack, and the fourth confirmed to have produced pups in 2026, alongside the One Ear, Three Creeks, and Copper Creek packs.
Here’s why that matters more than any release CPW ever did. As of March 2026, the state counted 31 collared wolves. Wolf litters typically run four to six pups. Four breeding packs means Colorado’s wolf population isn’t being propped up by trucks and crates from Oregon and British Columbia anymore — it’s growing on its own. CPW’s own biologists say pack formation improves both adult survival and reproduction. Translation: the hard part, from the wolves’ perspective, is over.
The last monitoring year (April 2025 through March 2026) recorded 10 wolf deaths — seven of them lone dispersing wolves, only three from established packs. Wolves in packs live. Packs raise pups. Pups start new packs.
And CPW has said it’s exploring additional releases on top of the natural growth, after pausing them last year. A full statewide count won’t be published until spring 2027 — so for the next year and a half, nobody can tell you exactly how many wolves are out there.
The Repeal Fight — and Why Hunters Are Split
Two ballot initiatives are trying to shut the program down. Initiative 13 would end wolf reintroduction by the end of 2026 and faces an August 27 signature deadline to make the November ballot. A broader version, Initiative 35, is tied up in legal challenges.
Here’s the part most people don’t expect: a coalition of 22 sportsmen’s and conservation groups — including Ducks Unlimited, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Safari Club International — has come out against the repeal effort. Not because they love wolves. Their argument is that repeal-by-ballot won’t undo packs that already exist, does nothing to protect ranchers from depredation, and burns money and political capital that should go toward forcing real management tools instead.
Agree or disagree, that’s the honest state of play: the wolves are here, they’re reproducing, and even the hunting establishment doesn’t believe a ballot measure can un-ring the bell. We got into the wider wolf question back in Wolves and Colorado: The Uncertain Future — and unfortunately, it’s playing out about how we feared.
What This Means for Your Elk Hunt
Nobody serious is claiming Colorado’s elk herds are collapsing — this is still the biggest elk herd in the country, and CPW actually added tags for 2026. But if you hunt the west slope, you’re now hunting elk that live with wolves, and that changes behavior before it ever changes herd counts. Ask anybody who hunts Idaho or Montana: elk get quieter, bunch up bigger, and move off pressure faster.
Our take: hunt Colorado now, while the wolf population is still measured in dozens and the elk are still patternable. If you’ve been putting off that west-slope bull, this is the year to stop waiting — look at the GMU 55 elk hunt in Taylor Park, the Gunnison country elk hunts, or a wilderness pack-in hunt in southern Colorado. Not sure which fits? Reach out and we’ll talk it through.
We’ll keep covering this one — it’s exactly the kind of fight we break down on the Hunt Podcast. The wolves aren’t going anywhere. The question now is whether Colorado manages them — or just watches.
Hunting is not a hobby. It’s an obsession.
