Providing Colorado Parks and Wildlife with information on illegal wolf killings could now earn individuals $50,000 — a significant increase over the typical $500 reward in Colorado for reporting the poaching of other endangered species. 

The Colorado Wolf Reward is the result of a collaboration between the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project and other nonprofits.

The killing of gray wolves in Colorado is illegal for circumstances outside of the state’s 10(j) rule, which authorizes killing certain wolves as a management tool for Parks and Wildlife to protect people and livestock. 

Currently, rewards are given to individuals who report illegal poaching through Parks and Wildlife’s Operation Game Thief program. The monetary incentive for reports about the poaching of endangered species is typically $500, and in some special cases — when approved by the program’s citizen committee — can extend up to $1,000. 

With the new wolf reward, the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project will fund the difference by offering $50,000 for instances where the tip leads to a confirmed case of poaching by law enforcement.

While none of Colorado’s reintroduced wolves have been killed by humans, it’s an “eventuality” for which the state needs to prepare, said Rob Edward, a strategic advisor to the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project who also led the charge to pass Proposition 114 in 2020. 

“We know from over 30 years of wolves being on the ground of the Northern Rockies and the Coastal Northwest that wolves get poached every year,” Edward said. “One of the ways we think we can help at least reduce the multi-person conspiracy to kill wolves is to offer a reward of a significant amount that keeps it in people’s minds that their neighbors may be economically willing to turn them in for that money.”

While the organization has been preparing to create the reward for some time, the recent news that one of the wolves that died in September had an old, healed gunshot wound prompted the launch. 

“Whether (the gunshot wound) was from Oregon or here, the fact is somebody tried to kill that wolf, and so we figured this was as good a time as any to make it public,” Edward said. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has indicated that a fight with another wolf was to blame for the wolf’s death, not the gunshot wound.  

Rocky Mountain Wolf Project partnered with the Wolf and Wildlife Project, Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, Sacred Wolf Foundation and Lockwood Animal Rescue Center to accumulate funds for the new reward program. 

“In other states like Oregon, state and federal agencies embrace NGO-funded rewards and all parties work side-by-side to complement and enhance incentives to bring perpetrators of crimes to justice,” stated Courtney Vail, Rocky Mountain Wolf Project’s board chair, in a news release. “We hope for the same collaboration in Colorado.”

Parks and Wildlife can prosecute illegal poachers under civil or criminal statutes, with fines up to $100,000, up to one year in jail and suspend hunting privileges for anywhere from one year to life. Federal prosecution can result in a maximum fine of $50,000 and up to one year in jail.  

Individuals will continue to report incidents involving the harming and killing of wolves to Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s existing hotline by calling 1-877-COLO-OGT or emailing at game.thief@state.co.us.

Parks and Wildlife did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new reward.