Mexican Wolves to Be Reintroduced into … Mexico

It is only fitting that Mexico is now planning to reintroduce lobos into their own country because the last Mexican wolves known to be in the wild were captured there in the late 1970s and placed into captivity to save the entire species. Five wolves will be released into the Sierra San Luis Mountains about 100 miles south of the Arizona/New Mexico border.

As we have seen with our own wolf reintroduction, wolves are capable of roaming and leaving their prescribed boundaries. No one knows what they will do, but a hundred miles is not so great that these Mexican Lobos couldn’t roam north into the United States. In this area, there are sections of the Border Wall that only exclude vehicles.

The wolves in the United States were introduced under an “experimental, non-essential” provision of the Endangered Species Act. This weakened rule has resulted in wolf removals because of depredation and boundary infractions and today, sadly, the end of 2009 count finds only 15 wolves in the wild in New Mexico.

However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that any wolves that migrate into the US on their own will by law have full protection of Endangered Species Act. This means they won’t be subject to removals that have so plagued the U.S. lobos. Establishing more than one wolf population with connectivity between members will greatly help wolf recovery. And finally, it may at last make more sense to give U.S. wolves full protection, too.

For more information, contact Mary Katherine Ray, Rio Grande Chapter Wildlife Chair (575/772-5655, mkrscrim@kitcarson.net). —Mary Katherine Ray