The Mexican gray wolf has roamed parts of the Southwest for thousands of years.
The wolves were nearly hunted to extinction but are now decades into a recovery effort that began with the passing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
Today, there are about 300 Mexican gray wolves confined to parts of New Mexico and Arizona including the Gila National Forest.
About three and a half hours south of Albuquerque, Michael Robinson peers through binoculars searching for Mexican gray wolves. As a senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological diversity, Robinson tracks and documents the wolves movements.
Robinson spreads out a large, well-used map on the warm, dusty hood of a Subaru Crosstrek.
“This is the Gila Wilderness Area,” Robinson said, pointing to the illustration of its vast 3.3 million acres.
The wilderness area – a home to the wolves – is a nature preserve adjacent to the Gila National Forest.
“We can go down a little bit to Black Canyon,” he paused. “You’ll be able to see an area that has been healing for decades from livestock that looks like just the effervescence of life,” he said.
Wolves were common in Gila National Forest and other parts of New Mexico and Arizona, surviving by hunting deer and elk. But when settlers came, deer and elk populations declined. The wolves then turned to hunting ranchers’ cattle – which led to efforts to eradicate them, according to federal wildlife officials.
Robinson is the author of the book Predatory Bureaucracy. He explained New Mexico is the ideal place for the Mexican gray wolves’ recovery.
“The reason they were brought back to this landscape is because it has some of the largest roadless areas left in the United States, and has a significant chunk of land that is not grazed by livestock,” Robinson said.
The recovery started with the last seven known Mexican gray wolves from Mexico and Arizona that were bred in captivity. Their offspring were then released into the Gila Wilderness in the late 1990s.
Today, 286 wolves are restricted to what’s called the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area (MWEPA). Robinson said the wolves’ containment in Gila is hurting their ability to recover.
He and other conservationists argue that the wolves face health issues, like birth defects and cancer because of the smaller genetic pool.
“There is significantly less genetic diversity than there was 20 years ago. Genetic diversity is still going down,” he said.
But wildlife officials see the situation differently.
“We’ve had success in the last, really, 10 years, almost averaging 13% growth,” said Stuart Liely, chief of New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
Liely works with federal agencies on wolf recovery. He said the growth of wolf populations is a positive thing, considering their endangered status and that recovery is a long process where gains are measured in decades.
“We saw a lot of growth in the population where we transferred over to
the animals on the ground were wild born themselves,” he said. “The transition period started really in 2015, 2017.”
Under the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, wolves are not allowed to migrate beyond the MWEPA Gila boundaries. If they travel north, they’re captured and returned.
Wolf advocates believe wildlife officials should let the wolves roam in hopes of improving their genetic diversity. For example, the Mexican gray wolves could cross-breed with wolves being reintroduced in Colorado.
But that idea doesn’t sit well with ranchers like Tom Paterson of Catron County, New Mexico. He’s also president-elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association. He said roaming wolves prey on livestock.
“If the American people want to have wolves on the landscape, then it shouldn’t – the cost of that shouldn't – be on the backs of the ranchers. It should be shared across the country,” Paterson said.
Compensation programs don’t always satisfactorily address financial losses wolves cause to ranchers, he added.
According to Paterson, the Fish and Wildlife Service has spent approximately $250,000 for each wolf. The program to date has cost the department $74.6 million dollars.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service publishes these costs on its web site.
The cattle growers’ association is also lobbying the federal government to take the wolves off the Endangered Species List, arguing that their recovery is sufficient.
But Sally Paez staff attorney for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance argues the wolves should retain their endangered status.
“What we have in the United States is one single population of wild Mexican wolves, and yet, the agency has determined that they’re not essential to the Mexican gray wolves’ continued existence which runs contrary to logic and I think the Endangered Species Act,” Paez said.
The group filed a lawsuit in the Arizona federal district court in Arizona in 2022 claiming the wolves were an “essential species” under the Endangered Species Act. The Arizona district judge denied all of the group’s claims.
In 2025, the group filed an appeal to that decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A final decision has yet to be rendered.
The fear of wolves is deeply ingrained in human culture-in legends, folklore, fairy tales, and contemporary fiction, said Luke Koenig, a Gila Grassroots Organizer for New Mexico Wild, a nonprofit dedicated to conservation in the state. He said there is a lack of understanding that the species are indispensable pieces of the ecosystem.
“There is really no data, there is no science, there is no rational understanding of wolves' role in this ecosystem that does not shout that wolves belong. It is just tragic that we still have to justify their presence decades and decades and decades after we first started learning about their role,” Koenig said.
Back in the Gila Wilderness Area, Robinson said Mexican gray wolves are indispensable to the ecosystem because they keep elk and deer populations in check.
“Wolves are really, to a large extent, they’re creatures of habit and learning,” Robinson said. “When wolves are used to preying on elk, they will often bypass cattle and simply ignore them, even if they see them just because it's not what they’re used to preying on.”
Robinson did not spot any wolves during this trip. They seemed as elusive as finding a consensus on their future.
