Standard operating procedure for a hunter usually boils down to one golden rule: know what you’re pulling the trigger on. Unfortunately for one Colorado hunter in mid-January, a case of mistaken identity turned a routine coyote hunt into an ecological oopsie. It was female gray wolf 2504-BC, a recruit imported all the way from British Columbia to help rebuild Colorado’s wolf population. Wolf 2504-BC marks the seventeenth wolf lost since Colorado kicked off its reintroduction project in late 2023, raising uncomfortable questions about how wolf-friendly the backcountry really is. On the topic of hunting coyotes, did you see the 12th Annual Winnett/Grass Range Coyote Derby has its dates set?