The critically endangered Mexican gray wolf is the rarest subspecies of all the North American gray wolves. Once numbering in the thousands, the Mexican wolf population plummeted in the early to mid-1900s due to a federal, state, and private campaign that used poisons, hunting, and trapping to kill wolves and other predators. These eradication efforts, taken to protect livestock, eliminated Mexican wolves from the wild by 1980 and nearly eradicated the species. In 1976, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) listed Mexican wolves as endangered and began a captive breeding program, based on seven remaining individuals. In 1998, USFWS reintroduced several families of captive-born Mexican wolves into a special wolf management zone straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border. Since then, USFWS has continued to reintroduce Mexican wolves from captivity into the growing wild population.
Mexican wolf reintroduction and recovery are vital to re-establishing balance in our natural ecosystems. Wolves serve as apex predators that regulate healthy populations of deer and elk, benefit plant life and riparian habitats, and promote biodiversity. Unfortunately, Mexican wolves continue to face an array of threats to their survival and long-term recovery. Mexican wolves suffer from critically low genetic diversity, in part because the entire population descended from only seven founding animals. Members of the current Mexican wolf population are about as related as siblings, which leaves the population less healthy and less able to respond to things like climate change and disease. Despite measures to protect cattle and the livestock industry, some ranchers and local governments continue to oppose reintroduction due to fear about predation on livestock. Since the reintroduction program began, illegal killing has been the largest overall source of mortality for wild Mexican wolves. Finally, USFWS regulations too often reflect politics instead of facts, science, and law.
Fortunately, there has been some good news recently. The latest population count documented 257 animals in the wild, marking a modest increase over the previous year and the eighth consecutive year of population growth. Additionally, New Mexico Wild and partner organizations, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, are pursuing a lawsuit in federal court aimed at forcing the USFWS to revise management policies to support the long-term recovery of Mexican wolves and to comply with the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The UWFWS must alleviate the genetic threats to Mexican wolves, prevent and punish illegal killings, allow Mexican wolves to roam into important habitat north of I-40, and facilitate the establishment of at least three interconnected subpopulations of Mexican wolves, as recommended by scientists.
For decades, New Mexico Wild has been at the forefront of protecting our small Mexican wolf population, keeping remote areas of the state wild enough for them to thrive, and advocating for responsible wildlife management policies. With your help, we will continue this critical work until the iconic Mexican wolf is recovered. Because, as we all know, Wolves Belong!
Please sign the petition urging the Biden Administration to protect Mexican Gray Wolves here.
Wilderness Protection Campaigns
There are 241 Mexican gray wolves known to survive in the wilds of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. If we want to protect New Mexico’s wild heritage, we must act now to protect the Mexican gray wolf. That’s why New Mexico Wild remains committed to advocating for the conservation of the wild places that Mexican gray wolves call home.
