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Status: ENDANGERED Heritage Park Zoological Sanctuary started participating in the recovery efforts of the Mexican wolf when we acquired three Mexican wolves (Hawkeye, Chavez, Che) in 2000 from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. They were eight years old at that time and brothers from the same litter. These brothers were bred as part of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Species Survival Plan (SSP) for this critically endangered species. This SSP was created to coordinate facilities around the country to breed and release animals to designated areas. The three HPZ received were bred for the reintroduction program, but were not released due to program requirements. After submitting an application to the competitive process, HPZ was awarded the animals based on the high quality enclosure design. While these three are no longer with us, we continue to play an active role in this SSP as a holding facility and the coordinators of the MWSSP offical website. We currently have five wolves on display. Mexican wolves are the smallest subspecies of the North American gray wolf and once roamed over a large part of Arizona, New Mexico, southern Texas, and Mexico. Intensive hunting in the late 1800s through the mid 1900s to eliminate "threats to livestock" drove them to the brink of extinction. They were declared Endangered in 1976. Five wolves were captured in Mexico between 1977 and 1980. These were the last wild mexican wolves. Bred with captive Mexican wolves at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the St Louis Zoo , the first pups were born in 1978.
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The first 11 captive-bred wolves were released in April of 1998 in the Apache National Forest in southeastern Arizona. Wolves have a complex social structure. They live in packs, which usually consist of a breeding (alpha pair), their current pups, a few yearlings and other young wolves, and occasionally some adult subordinate wolves (brothers and sisters of the alpha pair). In the wild, their diet consists of small rodents to prey the size deer and elk. We feed them a commercially prepared exotic canine kibble, as well as a variety of wild game meat. Removal of a top predator like the wolf has a domino effect on the entire ecosystem. Without a predator to cull plant eaters, vegetation is depleted and animals starve. Some plant populations die out, while less edible plants take over. Birds and insects, dependant on certain plants, are also affected. |
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