Mexico Welcomes First Mexican Gray Wolf Pups Born in the Wild in Decades
Wolf advocates are celebrating the confirmation of the first documented litter of Mexican gray wolves born in the wild in Mexico since they disappeared nearly three decades ago.
Without giving their exact location, Mexico’s National Commission for Natural Protected Areas confirmed the wolves were sighted in the western Sierra Madre mountains by a team of researchers and that the pups were doing well, according to the AP.
Mexican wolves, also known as lobos, once roamed vast portions of the Southwest and Mexico but were eradicated by the 1900s in the U.S. over conflicts with humans and livestock, while populations in Mexico dropped off. In 1976, they were listed as an endangered species and bi-national recovery efforts began the next year.
Mexico began releasing wolves in 2011, and released the parents last December in the hope they would breed.
“This first litter represents an important step in the recovery program, because these will be individuals that have never had contact with human beings, as wolves bred in captivity inevitably do,” the commission said in a statement.
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