Wolf recovery caught in ongoing debate
Long effort sees some success amid many challenges
ALPINE, Ariz. – The annual Mexican gray wolf aerial survey in January and February marked the end of another year in wolf recovery, another year of trying to rescue an imperiled predator from the brink of extinction, another year ready to start the work again.
Mexican gray wolves were federally listed as endangered in 1976 with seven surviving animals. The listing launched what has become decades of recovery efforts by two American states and no fewer than two federal agencies.
Suspended from the side of a helicopter above the forest floor earlier this year, Rick Langley aimed his gun at the ground, firing cracker shells to rouse his prey hidden among the trees. Startled by the explosions, two Mexican gray wolves emerged, flashes of gray and brown running across the snow-covered terrain.
Pilot Troy Woydziak pursued, flying at tree level above the rugged topography, his eyes trained on the fleeing wolves rather than the sky ahead, relying on crew member Lonnie Fox to warn him of any obstacles.
Bracing against the freezing wind and the helicopter’s rough maneuvers, Langley fired tranquilizer darts from 120 feet in the air at his target: the alpha male of the Eagle Creek pack, known as Mexican wolf M1477.
At the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf field office in Alpine, Arizona, an interagency team gathered around the radio receiver, waiting for news.
“Got a wolf down,” Woydziak said, voice crackling on the radio receiver in the tense field office. “We’re gonna set down, drop muggers off and it’ll be a little bit of a hike.”
As the helicopter hovered, Fox jumped to the ground, surprised to land in waist-deep snow. The snow would make his job as a mugger difficult. He’s charged with finding and carrying 50- to 80-pound sedated wolves out of the field, hoisting them above his shoulders to navigate the forest.
He followed the wolf ’s tracks, and ultimately, its instincts to find the easiest route to escape. A quarter-mile farther along, the animal lay sprawled in the snow, sedated by the dart. To limit the wolf’s exposure to the cold and snow, the crew would airlift him out.
The helicopter flew M1477 back to the field office, where veterinary staff waited to perform a health exam and replace his radio collar, a tool used to track movements. Although wolf managers captured specific wolves, they also counted them as the packs scatter, factchecking months of on-the-ground work to get an initial count of the wild population.
Agencies track wolves throughout the year, but survey operations ramp up in the fall and winter with trail cameras, trapping, helicopter surveys and scat collection to produce a population count.
Breeding season begins in the spring, both in wild and captive wolf populations. To strengthen the gene pool, agencies place genetically valuable captive-born pups in wild dens.
Managers monitor wolf activity throughout the year but increase efforts in the summer after the snow melts and wolves and cattle roam forest lands, creating the potential for more conflict.
Conservationists and evolutionary biologists support reintroduction, but say more should be done to recover wolves. While numbers have increased consistently over the last eight years, advocates fear the species will not achieve true recovery. They contest the Interstate 40 boundary of the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area and question if wolves can survive low genetic diversity.
Despite criticism from all sides, wildlife managers are bound by the Endangered Species Act to recover Mexican wolves as best they can.
“It needs to be done right and with balance,” said Paul Greer, Mexican wolf interagency field team leader for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, “so that we have a recovered wolf population within historic range that’s managed just like we manage all other wildlife.”
Why wolf advocates, wildlife managers differ on habitat
Despite the aerial crew’s efforts to get M1477 out of the cold as quickly as possible, his body temperature dropped on the journey to the field office.
Although his body systems appeared fine, thermometers read 94.2, almost 10 degrees cooler than wolves’ healthy temperature between 100 and 103 degrees.
The staff cranked up the building’s thermostat, wrapped the wolf in a blanket and broke into the team’s supply of hand warmers usually reserved for surviving Alpine’s snowy weather, placing them along the wolf’s body with warm fluid bags.
M1477 is one of the 257 wolves living in Arizona and New Mexico. Despite an increasing population, the wolf program still falls short of recovery goals.
Under the 2022 revised recovery plan, to begin the delisting process, the population needs to hit 320 wolves in the wild and maintain that average for eight years, with numbers in the final three years stable or increasing.
There is also a genetic component that requires the release of 22 genetically valuable foster pups that survive two years to breeding age.
“One of the primary goals of the program is to try to recover the Mexican wolf to the point it no longer needs the protections under the act, and that is getting them to a certain number for a certain period,” said Brady McGee, Mexican wolf coordinator for the fish and wildlife service.
Every Mexican gray wolf alive today descended from the seven remaining wolves in the 1970s after most of the subspecies had been hunted to extinction by settlers spreading across the Southwest in the early 20th century.
Recovery efforts began after the wolf was added to the Endangered Species List. As the population increased, the first wolves were released in March 1998 and the fish and wildlife service created the experimental population area in parts of Arizona and New Mexico south of I-40, which is the northern end of wolves’ historic range.
Managers track wolves’ activity and remove any who wander past the boundary.
A few wolves gained notoriety for testing the invisible barriers placed on
It is no fault of JB Pritzker’s, but he is governor of Illinois, a deeply blue state. There are no Republican statewide office holders and Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly.
them. Anubis, M2520, wandered north of the boundary in 2021. Another wolf, Asha or F2754, followed suit twice in 2022 and 2023.
While Asha was captured and placed in captivity, Anubis was not so lucky. He was shot and killed near Flagstaff in 2022, an illegal shooting because wolves outside of the recovery area are fully protected under the Endangered Species Act and cannot be harmed.
“When wolves go north of I-40, they are at a higher risk of something negative happening to them, whether it’s getting hit by a car or getting shot,” said Aislinn Maestas, public affairs specialist for the wildlife service. “When you have wolves in a place where people aren’t expecting to see them, the wolves have a higher chance of something bad happening to them.”
Managers believe these wolves were looking for mates in areas where no other wolves live, meaning they would not contribute to recovery goals. But conservationists and wildlife biologists believe I-40 is an arbitrary boundary. They say giving wolves unfettered movement to establish multiple populations is key to recovery. Intermixing with northern gray wolves, wolf advocates say, could further improve genetics.
Greta Anderson, deputy director for the Western Watersheds Project, maintains that multiple distinct populations will guarantee wolves’ longevity. If one population is affected by disease or environmental stressors, another will exist as a backup.
She criticizes wildlife managers’ reliance on the Mexican wolf recovery program in Mexico, which is struggling to maintain a population. With a small – potentially nonexistent – population and infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border, there is limited overlap and genetic exchange between the two countries.
Conservationists want to see three separate populations established in the U.S.: the current recovery area, the Grand Canyon ecoregion and above I-40 in northern New Mexico.
“Wolves are habitat generalists, all they need is stuff to eat and they can make a go of it,” Anderson said. “With climate change, most animals are moving to either higher elevations or to the north. That’s the adaptive response, and Mexican wolves are sort of stuck by the I-40 boundary.”
Wildlife managers maintain the wolves’ historic range in Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico. They say wolves evolved from this area, and seldom stray from it.
“We’re not living in history anymore,” Anderson contended. “We’re living in a paradigm where things are changing and we’re running out of time to give this species the resilience and space it needs to thrive.”
But the experimental population area also creates a geographical region of designated habitat to manage, which is legally required when recovering endangered species. Crews know where to seek wolves during the annual count, relying on GPS points and VHF signals to pinpoint packs’ locations like M1477 and the Eagle Creek pack.
Around 100 to 110 wolves have been fitted with collars that supply location information. M1477’s collar was replaced during his health exam in January; collar batteries last a few years, making replacement imperative.
Discovering Anubis and Asha’s movements would have been impossible without the collars, and while they could not save Anubis, recovering Asha helped save her from a similar fate.
“We are trying to recover wolves in an area where we can effectively manage them with reduced regulations as well to help people that are trying to make a living off the land through livestock,” McGee said, defending the experimental population area and its boundaries.
How fostering pups helps build genetic diversity
At Springerville Municipal Airport in eastern Arizona, all eyes were on a small duffel bag unloaded from a plane still cooling on the runway. Donning a pair of gloves, wildlife service veterinarian Susan Dicks reached into the bag and pulled out a week-old Mexican wolf pup.
The wolf is so young that its eyes were still closed. As Dicks pressed her stethoscope to the pup’s chest, it raised its paws in the air, squeaking at the disturbance.
April 25 was the start of this year’s wolf fostering season and marked a significant milestone: Dicks held the 100th captive-born Mexican wolf pup that would be placed into a wild den in the recovery area.
The 100th pup and its four siblings were bred in captivity for their genetics, as zookeepers can decide which wolves breed to optimize genetic diversity. The pups brought in for fostering came from genetically valuable parents at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
When the pups were taken from their mother, the race to get them in their new pack began. The sooner wildlife managers complete the process, the better chance their new mother will accept them.
Three of the five, including the 100th foster pup, would be placed in the Prime Canyon pack in Arizona. The alpha male was a foster, and his mate whelped – or gave birth – during the same week, making the pack an ideal candidate to receive pups.
To ensure the pack accepts the foster pups, both sets must be within a few days of age. Wolf managers hike out to the den and the mother and any nearby packmates will typically flee.
Senior wildlife biologist Allison Greenleaf drew the difficult task of crawling into the narrow den full of fur and elk bones, dug into the White Mountains.
“I’ve probably been in close to 100 dens and this was the hardest den I’ve ever been in,” Greenleaf said. “It’s tight and a little unnerving.”
The den was so small she had to crawl forward with only one arm extended. When she finally reached the two pups nestled in the back, she realized her head was stuck. She backed out, but not without scraping her cheek and losing her grip on the second pup.
The field team decided to proceed with the foster anyway, rubbing the pups together in a sack so they all smelled the same.
Officials stimulate the pups to urinate on each other, further strengthening their scent and drowning out any human scents they may have picked up on their journey.
All of the pups receive microchips and have DNA samples taken so managers can identify them in the future.
Wolf managers favor fostering pups instead of releasing adult mated pairs with pups from captivity. They believe releasing puppies is more socially acceptable to the surrounding community. Adult wolves are less afraid of humans and can associate them with food.
Jim deVos, Mexican wolf coordinator for the state game and fish department, said of the pups fostered on April 25, three were placed in Arizona and two in New Mexico.
Wolf pups have a 50% chance of surviving their first year in the wild, and wolf managers say the chance of survival is the same for foster and wild-born pups. Of those survivors, 70% will make it to their second year. According to those odds, 29 of the 83 fosters should have survived to breeding age. Managers believe more foster wolves could be out there, but they have not been officially documented.
“Like all mammals, the mortality is high at a young age,” said John Oakleaf, senior wolf scientist for the federal agency. “That’s what happens with wolves as well; we’re putting these pups out there when they’re really young.”
Oakleaf said foster pups have a similar survival rate to adult family releases and that 17 wolves survived out of the 96 released earlier in the program.
This year, the interagency team released a record 27 pups and officials believe the program has been successful, deVos said.
What happens when wolves, people clash
Wink Crigler, who runs the X Diamond Ranch near the Little Colorado River, remembers a particularly disturbing attack on a calf she raised from a bottle.
“One night, five wolves came in, and they killed him right here in my yard,” she said. “He was just the cutest thing, I could call him like a saddle horse. I have a very hard time with this because I raise all my cows very gentle.”
Crigler is one of many ranchers attempting to keep cattle in the experimental population area. After the snow melts, cattle and wolves overlap on national forest lands and during calving season. More livestock deaths can arise, creating a challenge for wildlife agencies and ranchers.
Officials run conflict mitigation activities throughout the year and attacks can occur at any time, but summer can be a busy season for wolf-cattle conflict.
In 2023, there were 111 confirmed incidents where livestock were killed or died from injuries inflicted by wolves according to the wildlife service.
To mitigate conflict, ranchers and wildlife agencies deploy range riders who patrol the area, ensuring wolves are not near cattle, removing carcasses that could attract scavengers and hazing packs away from ranches and high-conflict areas.
Annie Barkan is a Mexican wolf technician for the state wildlife agency. She wears many hats on the job, crawling into wolf dens during fostering season or hiking through the wilderness looking for wolves for the annual count.
But on a brisk day in April, she was a range rider keeping the peace between wolves and cows.
She set her telemetry scanner to the frequency for the Lost Spring pack, turning the handheld receiver to pinpoint which direction the wolves were in. If they are near livestock or residential communities, Barkan will haze them, hoping to frighten them away from the area.
Range riders use rubber bullets and cracker shells to startle wolves.
“You have pain, noise and human presence,” Greer said. “We see it work. We can see from the GPS points there is a change in behavior.”
But Crigler questions whether wolves and cows can live in the same area, much less peacefully coexist.
“A wolf is a carnivore. He’s a predator,” she said. “He kills for fun.”
The X Diamond Ranch has been in Crigler’s family since the 1890s. Through the years, her family has dealt with wildfire and drought, but she questions whether her ranch can survive wolves.
Although confirmed wolf kills are compensated by the Arizona Livestock Loss Board, Crigler believes the economic impact wolves have on ranches endangers the industry. As America’s cattle inventory declines, she is concerned wolves are putting further strain on the industry.
“I have to try to figure out every angle I can to survive,” she said. “(Wolf advocates) need to be a little more tolerant, because when this ranch or any ranch gets broken and sold, the waters are taken, there would be less tax base for the county, and if they like to eat steak, the prices will go up.”
“This is my life. I was born here; it’s my legacy. This ranch, this is me,” Crigler added.
Back in Alpine on that day in January, wildlife managers were satisfied with M1477’s exam – aside from a few fractured teeth, likely from an elk hoof – and brought him back to the forest. After setting eyes on him and his mate, they verified the pack’s place in the annual count.
As the sun set over the mountains, M1477 was waking up. The tranquilizer, telazol, wears off gradually from the front of the wolf’s body to its back.
Although some would be terrified standing 15 feet from a wolf, wolves generally fear humans.
Maestas watched M1477 hobble around “looking pretty goofy” – barely able to stand, let alone attack.
It would take a few hours for the tranquilizer to wear off, but M1477 would trace his mate’s scent and likely return to her by nightfall.