Eagle County rancher says one of her employees shot, killed wolf in King Mountain Pack

"The investigation is still ongoing and extremely stressful, costing me tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to protect myself and my employee from facing criminal charges," the rancher wrote.

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — A rancher in Eagle County said one of her employees shot and killed a female wolf in the King Mountain Pack this past March.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is leading the investigation into the wolf's death, which they announced on March 14.

"Since the introduction of gray wolves into Colorado in 2023, my life — and that of all my neighbors — has become, quite literally, a living hell," fourth-generation rancher Susan Nottingham wrote in a public submission to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is dated April 7.

She said that she owns and operates one of the largest cattle ranches in the state, which spans 20,000 acres of privately owned habitat in the Burns area for elk, moose, bighorn sheep and other wildlife. She said they coexisted until the King Mountain Pack formed nearby in 2025.

In the public document, Nottingham wrote that she suspected several wolf-related depredations, but they were not confirmed by CPW. She said she lost 60 calves in one year, which she equated to $180,000.

She wrote that after three confirmed depredations, she submitted an application for a chronic depredation lethal kill permit, which was denied "due to a CPW issue with a historic trash dump used by my outfitter during hunting season." An appeal was also denied.

"One of my employees ended up shooting the mother female," Nottingham wrote. "The investigation is still ongoing and extremely stressful, costing me tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to protect myself and my employee from facing criminal charges."

The exact circumstances around the shooting are not yet known.

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Denver7 has been following Colorado's wolf reintroduction program since the very beginning, and you can explore all of that reporting in the timeline below, which starts with our most recent story.

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Luke Perkins, public information officer with CPW, told Denver7 on Tuesday that because there is an ongoing investigation, there is little information that the agency can release beyond what it shared publicly in March when the wolf died.

That press release came out on March 13, saying that the GPS collar on the maternal member — or leading female — of the King Mountain Pack had issued a mortality signal in northwest Colorado.

The death left the pack with neither parent wolf, as the male had died about a month prior during an operation to fit the animals with new GPS collars. In February, CPW confirmed the male had died of capture-related complications. CPW said it would monitor the year-old pups.

Currently, it is illegal to kill a gray wolf in Colorado and consequences include a multi-thousand-dollar fine or imprisonment for a year, or both. A few specific instances that serve as exceptions for members of the public:

• Producer is given a chronic depredation lethal take permit: If state and federal agents do not have the resources to kill a wolf that has met the criteria for chronically depredating, this permit can be given to a producer. To date, none of these have been issued.
• Producer is given a retroactive lethal take permit: These are issued after a wolf has already been killed. The producer is responsible for providing evidence that the wolf had wounded, harassed or killed livestock, leading the producer or an employee to kill the wolf. State or federal agents must confirm this as well.
• Self-defense: Any person may kill a wolf to defend their life or somebody else's life

Nottingham ended her public submission by writing: "This is also an incredibly cruel situation for the animals involved. The wolves are not at fault; they simply do not belong here and cannot survive. Meanwhile, the emotional and financial stress on ranchers is immense and ongoing."

Denver7 has attempted to contact Nottingham but has not yet connected with her.