Mexican Wolf With Hankering For Wandering Released In New Mexico

A Mexican wolf that has demonstrated a desire to roam, only to be recaptured by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has been set free by the agency in New Mexico.

The wolf, named Asha, was freed with her mate and pups into the 244-square-mile Ladder Ranch, which adjoins the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in the Gila National Forest.

During the fall of 2023 Asha was tracked to Jemez Springs on the southern boundary of Valles Caldera National Preserve. The year before she also had roamed north, prompting Fish and Wildlife Service crews to capture her and return her to the experimental population area Socorro, New Mexico.

Smaller cousins of North American gray wolves, Mexican wolves long have been endangered. The predators historically ranged "throughout mountainous regions from central Mexico, through southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southwestern Texas," according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It's possible that the wolf's historic range touched Saguaro National Park, Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, while Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is thought to be on the fringe of the range.

The Mexican wolf is said to prefer mountain woodlands, such as those found in the Rincon District of Saguaro National Park and the high country of Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks.

The Service named Asha, her mate Arcadia, and their pups the Quartz Pack, though conservation groups had previously dubbed them the Caldera Pack in honor of Asha’s journeys to the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

“Asha should never have been punished with a year-and-a-half in captivity for merely wandering north of I-40, but we’re grateful to the agencies for doing the right thing now and setting this family free,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director of Western Watersheds Project. “May her puppies grow up in a world without arbitrary limits on their roaming, and we wish this young family all the best.”

As they mature and eventually breed, the Quartz pack pups have the potential to add genes to the wild population that suffers from low genetic diversity.

“I’m thrilled that Asha is free again along with her captive-born family,” said Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her senseless capturing twice deprived her of the opportunity to find a mate in the Rocky Mountains and expand the Mexican wolf’s range. May her pups grow up with their mom’s intrepid spirit and the savvy that kept her alive across so many miles.”

The Quartz pack was released six weeks after they were originally scheduled to be freed in June, and only after 8,000 citizens emailed and 36 conservation organizations wrote the Service and the Department of the Interior in July seeking their immediate release.