Colorado expands Range Rider program into Southwest, reaching San Juan County

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has announced an expansion of its Range Rider program into southwestern Colorado, opening requests for proposals for seasonal riders to work on allotments and build relationships with landowners and producers in San Juan County and neighboring communities. The move is part of the state’s broader gray wolf restoration effort tied to voter-approved Proposition 114 and seeks to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts through early detection and nonlethal interventions.

The Range Riding program began in 2025 as a collaboration between Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Colorado Department of Agriculture. In its first year the program contracted 11 riders, primarily in northwest Colorado where most wolf activity occurred. CPW has stated it intends to increase the number of contracted riders and expand coverage into the southwest for the 2026 season. CPW opened Requests for Proposals through Colorado’s Vendor Self Service; the RFPs are open through February 6, 2026, with interviews later in February and contracts awarded in early spring.

CPW frames range riders as an early-warning, information-focused resource. As Nickerson of CPW put it, “Range riders are often considered a nonlethal tool/approach, but I like to think of riders as pattern and information experts. Their collection and communication of important information allows us to work with producers to find viable, reasonable, and effective responses to the risk of wolf-livestock conflict. In terms of our program, riders are tasked with knowing the behavior and activity of livestock and wildlife and how it changes over time so they can notice a potential or existing conflict while there’s still time to take action.”

The program is being paired with other conflict-reduction measures at the agency level. CPW and partner agencies have hired a wolf damage and conflict minimization manager, are expanding depredation-investigation staff, have grown a stockpile of deterrent “hard tools,” and are completing site assessments. CPW also maintains a compensation program intended to recognize livestock losses tied to wolf interactions.

Local producers and statewide ranching groups have pushed for additional, practical measures as the state pauses new releases. The Colorado Cattlemen’s Association urged focus on “practical, producer-driven solutions” including “clear and workable lethal take authority when livestock are threatened or attacked,” timely and fair compensation, and sustained funding for mitigation programs. Garfield County rancher Chance Jenkins said, “I’m glad for whatever reason that it’s paused. At the end of the day, they are living, breathing animals, and I’m not a big fan of seeing almost half of a population die due to mismanagement.” Ritschard added that the pause should buy time for “better guidance on carcass management and a ‘sustainable’ range rider program,” and to determine which nonlethal tools fit particular operations and landscapes.

Farmingtonlocal’s transcript reported that “there's been 25 wolves released into the state to this point,” a figure the agency can confirm in its ongoing updates. Residents interested in Range Rider solicitations should search Colorado Vendor Self Service for “range rider” under published solicitations to find application materials and the solicitation number.

For San Juan County ranchers the expansion means more boots on the range and a structured channel to report patterns and risks before losses occur. Watch for CPW’s contracting decisions in early spring and for local yards and allotment managers to engage with newly hired riders as the season begins.