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Canis lupus baileyi Mexican Gray Wolf |
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| Description
You are visitor # Last updated 12/6/02 |
Threats
and Management Needs:
As humans moved westward and into the Southwest, they brought their livestock with them. Government and private predator control programs designed to protect livestock in the United States and Mexico accelerated the extirpation of the Mexican wolf (Gipson and Ballard, In press). The last confirmed wolf in east-central Arizona was trapped in 1960 on the Fort Apache Reservation (U.S. Fish and Wildl. Serv. 1996). By the mid-1970s, the Mexican wolf had disappeared completely from the southwestern United States (Brown 1983). The U. S. government listed the Mexican wolf as endangered in May 1976. Mexico also protects this wolf. The last few Mexican wolves known to exist were captured in Mexico from 1977 to 1980 (McBride 1980) and placed in a captive-breeding program. In 1995, two additional lineages were certified genetically pure and also placed into the captive-breeding program (Hedrick et al. 1997). Today, there are about 200 Mexican wolves known to exist – the majority of which are in captivity. Reintroduction of Mexican wolves began in March 1998 and will continue until a self-sustaining population exists in the wild.
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