Colorado Suspends Foothold Traps after One Traps a Wolf

Summary:

COLORADO – Colorado Parks and Wildlife is no longer letting livestock producers set foothold and leghold traps after one of the devices set for a coyote contributed to the death of a wolf in May.

The moratorium on 30-day trapping permits comes after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigated the death of a female gray wolf introduced through the state’s wolf restoration program. CPW captured the wolf in British Columbia and released her in Western Colorado in January.

In a late July press release, CPW said the federal government concluded the wolf died in northwest Colorado “due to an apparent secondary trauma” caused by a legal foothold trap set for a coyote. In response, the state wildlife agency suspended 30-day permits for the traps, which livestock producers sometimes use to remove predators threatening sheep or cattle.

It’s unclear how long the wildlife agency plans to maintain the statewide moratorium.

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