02
Oct
Event: Bringing Back the Mexican Gray Wolf
Saturday, October 6
12:00 noon and 2:00 p.m.
12:00 noon and 2:00 p.m.
Western National Parks Association Store
12880 North Vistoso Village Drive
Tucson, Arizona 85755
Click here for a map to the store.
Bringing Back the Mexican Gray Wolf
The smallest subspecies of gray wolf in North America is the genetically unique Mexican gray wolf of Mexico and the Southwest. The animal that ecologist Aldo Leopold called the “desert wolf” helped keep a balance in the woodlands and grasslands of southern Arizona and New Mexico. Beginning in 1915, the U.S. government systematically trapped and poisoned wolves throughout the West on behalf of the livestock industry. The last wolf was killed in the Rocky Mountains in 1945, and then the process began in Mexico. The 1973 Endangered Species Act led to the capture of the last five Mexican gray wolves for emergency breeding. Reintroduced to Arizona and New Mexico in 1998, the progeny of those survivors have been subject to renewed persecution. With just 58 wolves and only six breeding pairs in the wild at last count, the Mexican gray wolf’s survival and recovery hangs in the balance between decisions made on the basis of science and those made for political reasons. Michael Robinson is author of Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West (University Press of Colorado, 2005).
Reservations required: please call 622-6014 during business hours, beginning one week prior to the event.
Visit Western National Parks Association website for more infomation.
12880 N Vistoso Village Drive
Tucson, Arizona 85755
520-622-6014
This event is free, however, reservations are required and must be made no earlier than one week in advance. Call between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; or from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday. Visit wnpa.org for directions or more information.
Michael Robinson is a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. Michael’s work includes advocacy for recovery of gray wolves and jaguars, protection of the Gila River, and education about the Endangered Species Act. Michael holds an M.A. in literature from the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder and a B.A. in philosophy and literature from the Univ. of Texas at Austin. He has authored dozens of articles and opinion pieces on conservation issues that have appeared in publications ranging from High Country News to the New York Times. He is author of Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West.
