Mexican Gray Wolves
United States
Arizona / New Mexico / Texas / Colorado
The Mexican Gray Wolf (Canis Lupus Baileyi), also known as the “Lobo” Mexicano, is the smallest, rarest and most genetically distinct subspecies of Gray Wolf in North America. After being completely extirpated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (and its predecessor agency) who poisoned and trapped almost all Mexican wolves from the United States from 1915 until 1973, they were introduced back into the wild in 1998 to the Apache National Forest (Arizona).
The Mexican Gray Wolves’ historic range was the Southwest United States / Mexico borderlands, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and northern Mexico. The Mexican wolf preferred chaparral desert scrub, ponderosa pine-covered mountains, piñon-juniper forests, oak woodlands and adjacent grasslands above 4,000 feet in elevation.
Mexico / Historic Mexican Range
The Mexican Gray Wolf once extended as far south as the Isthmus of Tehauntepec which is the southernmost border of Mexico.