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Jonás Eduardo Josué León

The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

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Page 1: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Jonás Eduardo Josué León

Page 2: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Historically, the core range of Mexican wolves occurred throughout mountainous regions from central Mexico, through southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southwestern Texas.

Page 3: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

The Mexican wolf was listed as an ENDANGERED SPECIES in 1976.

Mexican gray wolves (Canis lupus baileyi) nearly went extinct 40 years ago. After decades of hunting and persecution the last five wild members of the subspecies were rounded up in 1973 and placed in an emergency captive breeding program.

Once the Mexican wolf was listed as an endangered species, the United States and Mexico created a recovery plan. To make this work, wild Mexican wolves had to be caught. Only 5 wolves were found. Four males and one pregnant female. These five wolves represented the hope for the Mexican wolf.

Page 4: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

These wolves were caught in Durango, and Chihuahua, Mexico and transferred to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

There they remained until 1998, when the first of a series of highly controlled releases took place in Arizona, followed by later releases in New Mexico.

Page 5: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Once driven to the brink extinction in the United States, the population of Mexican wolves has doubled in the past five years.

There were at least 109 wild Mexican wolves, or lobos, in the Southwest in 2014, up from 83 in 2013, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced. It's the fifth year in a row the small population has grown. In 2010, there were just 50 Mexican wolves in the wild.

According to the latest wolf census —there are now 19 packs, with at least 53 wolves in New Mexico and 56 wolves in Arizona. The 2014 total also included 38 wild-born pups that survived through the end of the year, FWS officials said in a statement.

Page 6: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Wolf pack ranks Alpha – Leader Beta – assistant leader Other- hunters, pup sitters Omega – lowest ranking wolf Mexican wolves have a complex social structure and an

intricate communication system that includes scent marking, body postures, and numerous vocalizations such as howling, barking, whining, and growling.

Wolf mouth Wolves have a total of 42 teeth 10 more than humans.

Page 7: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Pack Life They live in extended family groups, or packs,

consisting of an adult mated pair and their offspring, often from several generations.

The alpha pair is usually monogamous, and they typically are the only breeding animals in the pack.

The leader alpha. There are 2 leaders in the pack, the alpha male and alpha female are the head of the social hierarchy of a wolf pack.

Mexican wolf pack might consist of 4 - 8 animals, with a territory encompassing up to several hundred square miles.

PuppiesMexican wolves breed between mid-February and mid-March. It takes 63 day gestation period for the puppies to be born. A normal litter size is 4 to 6 puppies.

Page 8: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

The Mexican wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf, the smallest one (1.2-1.5 meters long, weighing 27-37 kilograms). Until modern times, the Mexican wolf ranged from central nd Arizona in the United States of America.

Habitat: forests, grasslands, and shrublands.Food Mexican wolves usually eat the following critters: Javelina (wild pigs), Rabbits, Deer Small mammals. Mexican wolves hunt cooperatively to bring down prey animals usually much larger than themselves. Mexican wolves can and do occasionally kill livestock, particularly young animals. Mexican wolves also readily scavenge on carcasses of prey species.

Page 9: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

Prey of the wolf mice, deer, elk, hare, buffalo, birds, sheep, Ground

squirrel, goat, wild horse, wild boar, porcupine, rabbit, gopher, shrew, rat, insects, nuts, berries, fruits, shellfish, earthworms, carrion, and human garbage

Dangers to wolf pups Wolf pups are preyed upon by a wide variety of

predators, including bears, cougars, and other wolves. Hunters are also a danger to many wolf pups

Page 10: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

In the 1980s, when wildlife officials were devising ways to reintroduce captive-bred Mexican wolves in the Southwest, their goal was to have 100 individuals in the wild to guard against extinction.

Earlier this year, FWS officials announced that Mexican wolves would be protected as a subspecies under the Endangered Species Act, separate from gray wolves. The agency also expanded the territory for the population of Mexican wolves and set an objective to boost their numbers to up to 325 individuals.

Page 11: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

But conservation groups like the Center for Biological Diversity have pointed to a previous study prepared for FWS, which found that 750 Mexican wolves across three sub-populations were necessary to ensure the species survival. Wolf advocates also took issue with the agency's decision to grant permits allowing people and state agencies to kill wolves that prey on livestock or have an "unacceptable impact" to a wild herd of elk, deer.

Page 12: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

"Allowing Mexican gray wolves to disperse over a broader area is a positive, but that positive is negated by an unfounded population cap and increased authorized killing — neither of which is based in the science that says what's best for lobos.”

These wolves may have lived in the wild now for almost 17 years, but U.S. officials haven’t truly considered them to be wild. Instead, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has actually labeled the animals as a “nonessential experimental population” of the main gray wolf species, which meant they could be removed from the wild at any time. Indeed, several re-wilded wolves have been returned to captivity over the years after they threatened the animals on nearby cattle ranches. Others have been shot and killed.

Page 13: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)

THANKS

Page 14: The mexican wolf (canis lupus baileyi)