With no apparent plan in place to bring in more wolves to Colorado for 2026, Colorado Parks and Wildlife may have an even bigger problem.

A Dec. 18 letter from Brian Nesvik, director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), threatens to terminate the state’s authority to manage wolves unless certain conditions are met.

As first reported by the Fort Collins Coloradan on Saturday, Nesvik demanded that Colorado provide a complete report of all gray wolf conservation and management activities between Dec. 12, 2023 — the day the first wolves from Oregon were released in Colorado — to the present.

That report must include a “narrative summary” and documents associated with CPW’s decision to bring wolves from British Columbia, which Nesvik had previously said violated the agreement between Colorado and USFWS.

The agreement between USFWS and CPW said that Colorado’s management of gray wolves, as a federally listed species, would be conducted in full compliance with a 10(j) rule issued by the federal agency under the Biden administration and subject to its oversight, Nesvik noted.

Nesvik also had concerns about Colorado’s recent decision to relocate a Copper Creek wolf that had wandered into New Mexico and bring it to Grand County, where the Copper Creek wolves have killed dozens of livestock at a cost to ranchers of more than $500,000.

The USFWS was recently informed that CPW had released a wolf into Grand County with a confirmed history of repeated depredation, Nesvik wrote.

All information regarding the Copper Creek wolf and the release of wolves from British Columbia is due by Jan. 18, Nesvik wrote.

“If the above information is not supplied within the prescribed time period, this letter serves as the requisite 60-day-calendar-day-notice of termination,” Nesvik wrote.

Termination of the agreement would result in the “immediate revocation of all CPW authority over gray wolves in its jurisdiction,” and that USFWS would assume all gray wolf management activities, “including relocation and lethal removal,” as determined to be necessary, the federal official said.

In October, Nesvik told Colorado Parks and Wildlife it does not have authority to bring in wolves from anywhere other than Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the eastern regions of Utah, Washington and Oregon.

Nesvik wrote on Oct. 10 that Colorado Parks and Wildlife must “immediately cease and desist any and all efforts related to the capture, transport and/or release of gray wolves” not obtained from those listed states.

Colorado had already signed a contract with British Columbia to bring in the next batch of wolves, along with a proposed payment of $400,000.

Agency officials said at the time they would “continue to evaluate all options to support this year’s gray wolf releases in alignment with the approved Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan and the 10(j).” The state agency also said it would “evaluate” the letter from USFWS.

Colorado’s wildlife agency has so far brought in 10 wolves from Oregon and 15 from British Columbia. But 10 of the wolves have died from a variety of causes. Two more wolves, part of a pack of five wolves born to a mating pair from Oregon, now known as the Copper Creek pack, were killed by CPW after reports of chronic depredation in Pitkin and Routt counties earlier this year.

The wolves have killed more than five dozen head of livestock — cows, calves, llama and sheep — as well as working dogs in Pitkin, Routt, Gunnison, Rio Blanco, Eagle and Grand counties. Wolves that traveled into northern Jackson County from Wyoming have also killed more than two dozen livestock and working dogs in the past four years.