Birthdays are abound! It’s pup season for wolves, so over the next few weeks we’ll be celebrating a number of wolves on their special day! Today we celebrate Mexican gray wolf M904. Sadly we don’t know the exact birthday for this handsome lobo because he was born in his rightful place in the wild.

M904 was born in 2002 and contributed to the recovery of his rare species as the Francisco pack’s alpha male. Although Mexican wolves are critically endangered, USFWS designates the wild population as “experimental, nonessential.” This designation means that their recovery is trumped by the demands of industry and/or recreation. Because designated as “nonessential,” M904 was taken from the wild in 2005 for depredation incidents and would never again experience his native landscape.