The United States population of Mexican wolves has surpassed interim abundance and release targets, as well as predictions for gene diversity and population growth. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 5-Year Evaluation of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Strategy assesses progress on recovery objectives for the Mexican wolf for both the U.S. and Mexico populations of wild Mexican wolves. This evaluation also measures progress towards interim abundance and release targets identified in the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan, and compares between observed metrics and predicted metrics, which were derived from 2017 modeling and used to craft the current recovery strategy and criteria for the endangered subspecies.
“This progress report shows we are ahead of where we anticipated being in achieving our recovery goals in the United States for Mexican wolves,” said Brady McGee, Service Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator. “Since its inception, this program has strived to adjust and adapt our efforts to maximize success for recovery of this subspecies. This evaluation is evidence that what we are doing is working and provides a chance to reflect and shift as needed.”
The interim abundance targets in the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan at 5 years were 145 for the United States and 100 for Mexico. The minimum observed number of Mexican wolves for the U.S. population at 5 years (2022) was 242, while Mexico observed 35 Mexican wolves at the time. Both populations surpassed projections for gene diversity over the 5-year period, and both the U.S. and Mexico are retaining more than 90 percent of the captive population’s gene diversity.
“Given the founding population of seven Mexican wolves, the ability to demonstrate such a high retention rate for gene diversity and other associated genetic measures is a paramount recovery success,” said Jim deVos, Arizona Game and Fish Department Mexican Wolf Recovery Coordinator. “Through the use of an effective pup fostering program, where every captive pup is selected for genetic factors that contribute to high gene retention, our diversity goals are being achieved in the wild, boding well for sustaining recovery.”
The current recovery strategy for the Mexican wolf is to establish and maintain two resilient, genetically diverse Mexican wolf populations distributed across ecologically and geographically diverse areas in the subspecies’ historical range in the United States and Mexico.
While the U.S. population has exceeded the five-year interim recovery targets, the population of Mexican wolves in Mexico has not grown at the rate anticipated, nor is the population reaching interim abundance or release and translocation targets.
Given the successes of the U.S. population, the evaluation recommends continuing with the current recovery strategy to further progress toward objectives and goals, including the emphasis on fostering to incorporate gene diversity from the captive population into the wild population.
To improve population performance and progress toward recovery in Mexico, a range of possible actions have been identified, including focusing on increasing social tolerance, reducing annual mortality rates, improving monitoring efforts, identifying additional release sites, and increasing release and translocations of wolves.
The timing of the 5- and 10-year recovery strategy evaluations is based on calendar years following the signing of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan, First Revision, in 2017. The evaluation looks at data collected at least through the end of 2022, with some data from 2023 incorporated.
The evaluation was completed with input from the Arizona Game and Fish Department, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, U.S. Forest Service, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, White Mountain Apache Tribe and Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas.
