Mexico to Place 5 Mexican Grey Wolves near Arizona

Mexican Grey Wolf (©Robin Silver)"The government of Mexico is planning to reintroduce five endangered Mexican gray wolves in northeastern Sonora - within a wolf's walking distance of Arizona.

The reintroduction, scheduled to occur as early as this month, has forced U.S. state and federal agencies to scramble. Their problem is to figure out what to do if a wolf wanders north into the United States."

Read the full article in AZ Daily Star - Mexico to place 5 wolves near AZ

Here is a release from the AZ Game and Fish Dept.:

Mexico has announced its intent to release captive Mexican wolves, perhaps as early as October-November 2009, in northern Mexico (in eastern Sonora and western Chihuahua). On August 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will brief the Commission on how this project has been developed and on the potential for post-release dispersal into southern Arizona and New Mexico. The Service will also address other issues pertaining to wolves that disperse from Mexico into the AZ-NM borderlands, including: their legal (protected) status under federal law; how they will be detected, monitored, and managed; how reports of nuisance and livestock depredation incidents will be investigated; how impacts on big game populations will be detected and mitigated; how nuisance and depredating wolves will be managed; how proactive interdiction, incentive, and compensation measures will be funded and administered; and how outreach will be handled to make stakeholders and interested parties in southern Arizona and New Mexico and the general public aware of the project and the ramifications of post-release dispersal from Mexico into the United States.

See more of Robin Silver's Mexican Grey Wolf images