Wandering Wyoming lone wolf enters Colorado

A wolf biologists tracked for the past year wandering throughout Wyoming seems to have crossed an open hunting zone to a new home in Colorado. About a year ago, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department detected the VHF collared wolf (Canis lupus) referred to as 1084M just south of Yellowstone National Park with its Snake River Wolf Pack. A few months later, the wolf left its pack for the South Fork of the Shoshone River drainage, which is on the other side of the Absaroka mountain range. Soon after, they detected the wolf wandering once more, this time at the tip of the Wind River Range in western Wyoming. But then, the tracking collar began sending off signals in Colorado, suggesting the wolf had crossed Wyoming’s high deserts — a predator zone where people can hunt wolves indiscriminately. It survived and made it to safe haven in Colorado, where wolves are fully protected by the Endangered Species Act. Scientists are now keeping track of the wolf using camera traps, and the wolf was sighted in North Park of the Rocky Mountains in late August. But some biologists predict the wolf will eventually return to Wyoming.

Read more in the Casper Star Tribune.