Colorado’s wolf reintroduction effort may have just hit a major snag.

According to reporter Marianne Goodland of the Denver Gazette, an October 10 letter from Brian Nesvik, director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, informed Governor Jared Polis and Colorado Parks and Wildlife director Jeff Davis that the state is not allowed to utilize wolves from Canada or Alaska in the reintroduction effort. Instead, wolves must come from the lower 48 states.

The reason behind the instruction is the 10(j) rule, which allows the wolf reintroduction program to exist with USFWS oversight, with that 10(j) rule only allowing Colorado to obtain wolves from the Rocky Mountains population area – Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the eastern third of Oregon, the eastern third of Washington, and north-central Utah.

The letter from Nesvik came with a command to cease and desist the effort to obtain wolves outside of the aforementioned region for the reintroduction effort.

While the first round of wolves released into Colorado in December of 2023 were from Oregon, wolves later involved in the program were translocated from British Columbia. The decision to look to Canada for wolves came amid difficulty in finding wolves for the program from U.S. states and after Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming all refused to provide wolves.

At this time, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is “evaluating” the letter from the USFWS, per Goodland’s reporting, also stating that the agency will “continue to evaluate all options to support this year’s gray wolf releases in alignment with the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan and the 10(j).”

Read a full in-depth report on the situation from Marianne Goodland here.