Restore Mexican Gray Wolves to California

It’s Time to Bring Wolves Back to the Mojave Desert 

In arizona, California, Mexican Gray Wolf, New Mexico, Utah by TwowolvesLeave a Comment

Restore Mexican Gray Wolves to California

In the wake of major land protections in the California desert, there’s no better opportunity to think about reintroducing Mexican wolves.

One day in 1922, rancher Pauline Watson found something surprising on a trap line she’d set for coyotes near her ranch in the Mojave Desert’s New York Mountains. It wasn’t a coyote. At 100 pounds, it was twice as heavy as the best-fed Mojave Desert coyotes. This animal was too big, too robust, covered in fluffy whitish fur with a darker widow’s peak, like an Alaskan husky.

It was the last wolf ever trapped in the Mojave Desert. Though Watson’s daughter later said her mother had no desire to kill the wolf, it died on its way to a life of confinement as a planned zoo exhibit in Barstow.

For nearly a century, it was generally assumed that the wolf was a vagrant male from somewhere well to the north, a southern Rocky Mountain gray wolf. Recent genetic testing, though, indicates that it was more likely a Mexican wolf, a member of the most-endangered group of wolves in the world. If that’s confirmed by further testing, it’ll raise a question: why not bring the Mexican wolf back to the Mojave Desert?

Source: It’s Time to Bring Wolves Back to the Mojave Desert | KCET

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