New in the Press:

By The Associated Press

SANTA FE – Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday ordered a temporary ban on trapping on the New Mexico side of an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced into the wild along the New Mexico-Arizona border.

This three-legged wolf is a member of the Middle Fork pack.

Richardson ordered the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to prohibit trapping for six months while it studies what risk traps and snares pose to wolves.

A federal effort to reintroduce the endangered subspecies of the gray wolf into the Southwest began in 1998.

Biologists had predicted a self-sustaining wild population of 100 wolves by now, but the latest count at the end of 2009 found 42. Three have been found dead since June, two of them shot.

To read the full article published in the Alamogordo Daily News on July 29, 2010 and post a comment, click here.

Please thank Governor Richardson for his ban on traps in lobo country! Call his office at (505) 476-2200 or send him an email (via his staff) at fran.lucero@state.nm.us. Thank him for issuing an executive order banning traps in the Mexican wolf recovery area to protect wolves from accidental trapping and for being a champion for Mexican wolves throughout his time in office.

You can learn more about how to help wolves here.