Mexican wolf recovery achieves another milestone
Five additional Mexican wolf pups moved from captivity to the wild
 In early June 2026, five new-born Mexican wolf pups provided by captive programs associated with the Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) project were released into the wild by the Arizona Game and Fish Department – continuing a nearly 20-year-old program aimed at managing the genetic diversity of this wolf subspecies.
This practice, referred to as “fostering”, involves taking pups that are less than 14 days old from captivity and placing them into a den of pups produced by wild parents. The wild parents adopt and raise these new youngsters as their own, increasing the genetic diversity of the subspecies on the landscape.
The process began in 2016, and prior to this year's effort, 143 captive pups have been introduced into almost 50 widely distributed wild dens in Arizona and New Mexico.
Key partners in this effort were the Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) project, a program comprised of institutions in both the United States and Mexico that manage the captive population of Mexican wolves and provide the pups for foster, and LightHawk, a group of volunteer aviators who donate their time and aircraft for conservation purposes that flew the pups to Arizona.
“The goal of these fosters is to optimize genetic management of the wild population of Mexican wolves that originated with seven founders after being nearly driven to extinction by the 1970s,” said Jim deVos, Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Mexican wolf coordinator.
“To meet downlisting requirements under the Endangered Species Act, certain goals need to be achieved. Genetics remain the biggest challenge to recovery, and fostering has proven to be effective in meeting this element,” said deVos. “Fostering has proven to be so successful that this year a total of 23 fosters have survived in the wild for two years, surpassing the Recovery Plan goal of 22 wolves that was to be achieved by 2030.”
The wild Mexican wolf population in the United States has increased for over a decade.
In 2025, 317 individuals were counted in the mid-winter population counts. With this success, the agencies that manage the Mexican wolf recovery are now focusing on effectively managing the genetic challenges faced by this subspecies. In the last 20 years, 148 foster pups have been placed into widely dispersed dens, supporting the agency's focus on this tool for recovery purposes.
The pups will need to be captured in the future to determine the success of the fosterings, but what has been achieved to date bodes well for the recovery and eventual delisting of the Mexican wolf.
Following the successful transfer of 12 Mexican wolves from the United States to Mexico earlier this year and with two key recovery plan criteria within reach, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the New Mexico Department of Wildlife and the Arizona Game and Fish Department are preparing a petition for downlisting the subspecies based on these successes.
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