Colorado
Jackson County ranch cattle dog attacked by wolf, wildlife officials confirm
Colorado wolves kill sheep
A Grand County ranch lost eight sheep to wolves on July 28, 2024.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed a dog was attacked by a wolf or wolves in Jackson County, just more than a month after the last confirmed wolf depredation, also in Jackson County.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in an email to the Coloradoan on Wednesday it is not sharing information other than what is posted on its confirmed wolf depredation page.
That report says the depredation occurred March 9 and involved one dog and that no claim has been filed.
CPW defines a depredation as physical trauma resulting in injury or death. It was not confirmed by the agency if the dog was injured or killed.
“CPW has team members working with the producer impacted, as well as surrounding producers to identify and deploy non-lethal wolf-livestock conflict minimization measures,” CPW spokesperson Travis Duncan, wrote in the email to the Coloradoan.
The Coloradoan sent an email March 13 asking CPW for details about the March 9 depredation after being notified of the incident by sources familiar with the situation.
CPW spokesperson Rachel Gonzales chose not to confirm or deny the attack when asked by the Coloradoan.
It was the second confirmed wolf depredation of livestock in Jackson County in just more than a month. The dog involved in the March 9 depredation was a working cattle dog, which is covered under the state’s wolf recovery plan compensation program.
CPW stated in a news release sent Feb. 15 a cow was confirmed killed by a wolf or wolves Feb. 5. Greg Sykes told the Coloradoan the depredation occurred on a ranch he manages about 12 miles west of Walden.
That depredation was the first recognized as being from a wolf not familiar to the state wildlife agency.
CPW said in the release the depredation was not by released wolves fitted with collars or two uncollared wolves the state acknowledges have been in the state.
The ranch was paid $2,097.66 for the loss, according to CPW’s wolf depredation page.
The March 9 depredation was the first confirmed by a wolf of a dog since March 13, 2023, when members of the North Park pack killed Sykes’ working cattle border collie, and injured a pet dog on a neighboring ranch.
Sykes was paid $15,000 for his loss, the maximum compensation allowed under the state’s wolf recovery plan. Pet dogs are not covered under the plan.
North Park pack members injured a working cattle dog and killed a pet dog on the same ranch northeast of Walden in January of 2022. That claim totaled $1,252.72.
An uncollared wolf was in the area where the recent wolf depredation occurred
The March 9 depredation did not take place near the Feb. 5 depredation in Jackson County, according to Jackson County rancher Don Gittleson, who out of respect for the ranch’s privacy declined to comment on specifics of where the most recent depredation took place.
Gittleson told the Coloradoan, he saw a wolf on his ranch northeast of Walden on March 17. He said he was feeding cattle a mile from his house when he had a clear view of the wolf from about 150 yards away as it looked at him before moving off over a rise.
Gittleson has seen numerous wolves on his ranch in person and said it was without question a wolf.
Gittleson said he did not see a collar on it but that it could have been hid by the wolf’s fur.
He said he called the sighting in to CPW and asked if there were collared wolves in the area. He said the person he spoke to said there were no collared wolves in the area but that they would check on the latest data collected from GPS collars and give him an update.
“I never heard a peep, which leads me to believe we have an uncollared wolf around here,” Gittleson said. “I asked because there’s been a lot of talk around here about the uncollared wolves people are seeing. I guess that means we have at least one more uncollared wolf up here.”
CPW acknowledges 29 collared wolves in the state plus two uncollared wolves.
Colorado
Two-alarm fire damages hotel in Estes Park, 1 person taken to a Colorado hospital
A two-alarm fire damaged a hotel in Estes Park on Friday night. It happened at Expedition Lodge Estes Park just north of Lake Estes.
The lodge, located at 1701 North Lake Avenue on the east side of the Colorado mountain town, was evacuated after 8:30 p.m. and the fire chief said by 10 p.m. the fire was under control.
One person was hurt and taken to a hospital.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. So far it’s not clear how much damage it caused.
A total of 25 firefighters fought the blaze.
Colorado
Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains
Lucas Herbert/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
Friday morning wrapped up a warm storm across Colorado’s northern and central mountains, bringing totals of up to 10 inches of snowfall for several resorts.
Higher elevation areas of the northern mountains — particularly those in and near Summit County and closer to the Continental Divide — received the most amount of snow, with Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge mountains seeing among the highest totals.
Meanwhile, lower base areas and valleys received rain and cloudy skies, thanks to a warmer storm with a snow line of roughly 9,000 feet.
Earlier this week, OpenSnow meteorologists predicted the storm’s snow totals would be around 5-10 inches, closely matching actual totals for the northern mountains. The central mountains all saw less than 5 inches of snow.
Here’s how much snow fell between Wednesday through Friday morning for some Western Slope mountains, according to a Friday report from OpenSnow:
Aspen Mountain: 0.5 inches
Snowmass: 0.5 inches
Copper Mountain: 10 inches
Winter Park: 9 inches
Breckenridge Ski Resort: 9 inches
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area: 8.5 inches
Keystone Resort: 8 inches
Loveland Ski Area: 7 inches
Vail Mountain: 7 inches
Steamboat Resort: 6 inches
Beaver Creek: 6 inches
Irwin: 4.5 inches
Cooper Mountain: 4 inches
Sunlight: 0.5 inches
Friday and Saturday will be dry, while Sunday will bring northern showers. The next storms are forecast to be around March 3-4 and March 6-7, both favoring the northern mountains.
Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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