Vardaman, who had been tracking the pack, was a key part of those efforts. Throughout that summer, wildlife biologists conducted howl surveys of the area to see if any of the others had survived. By that fall, just months after they crossed the nearby border into Wyoming, three of them had been shot and killed. That winter, a wolf pair and as many as four others were spotted in Moffat County, Colorado - the first pack of wolves in the state in more than 80 years. Three prominent conservationists camped near the weathered land marker that identified the junction of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, hoping to hear something that had long been absent from this landscape: the howling of a pack of wolves.Ĭonservationist Karin Vardaman, who is widely recognized as one of the nation’s experts on wolves, was collecting data for the Working Circle, a nonprofit she founded that works to reduce conflicts between predators and livestock producers. In the early days of October 2020, a soft breeze blew across Cold Spring Mountain, rustling the sagebrush and aspen groves. This story was originally published by High Country News and is republished here by permission.
By Paige Blankenbuehler, High Country News