New in the Press:

JIM SALTER Associated Press Writer

One of five eight-week-old Mexican Gray wolf pups is held by a keeper to be weighed before getting a check-up at the Endangered Wolf Center, Thursday, July 1, 2010 in Eureka, Mo. The pups will eventually be re-introduced into the wild in the southwest United States. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — They looked just like five well-behaved puppies, barely squirming, when a veterinarian gave them their eight-week inoculations. In reality, experts believe the tiny animals offer hope for a nearly extinct breed of wolf.
 
The Mexican gray wolf pups — four light gray males and one female — had a coming-out party of sorts Thursday. Members of the media were given a first glimpse of the pups born May 2 at the Endangered Wolf Center in suburban St. Louis.

Volunteer vet Randy Junge, director of animal health at the St. Louis Zoo, vaccinated the pups and injected tracking microchips under their skin. The pups took it in stride with hardly a yelp or a fidget.

“They’re all very healthy,” Junge said. “No surprises.”

That’s good news for advocates of the Mexican gray, a wolf species indigenous to an area that includes Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico. The expansion of the American West has not been kind to the once thriving breed known by some as “El Lobos.”

Officials at the Endangered Wolf Center say the Mexican grays were hunted, trapped and poisoned for more than a century by ranchers and others. It was designated an endangered species in 1976, and was considered extinct in the wild until reintroduction into Arizona and New Mexico in 1998.

Today, 42 Mexican grays live outside of captivity. That’s why advocates are so excited about the new pups, who will be introduced into the wild when they are old enough, in 18 months to three years.

Click Here to read the rest of this Associated Press story, published on July 1, 2010.

More pictures and video of the wolf pups can be seen at the KSDK news website.