Last spring, U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s (FWS) Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team made history – they successfully completed the first cross-fostering event of Mexican wolf pups in the wild! Cross-fostering is a coordinated effort FWS, the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, and the Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan (MWSSP) and is a technique employed to enhance the genetic health of the wild gene pool of Mexican wolves. The Red Wolf Recovery Program has been successfully using captive-to-wild fostering as a recovery tool since 2002, allowing genetically valuable captive-born red wolf pups to become integrated into the wild red wolf population. But last May the Mexican wolf program employed this effort too and two 2-week-old pups from the Coronado Pack were transplanted into the Dark Canyon Pack’s three-pup litter of similar age. In this video, FWS captures one of the wild pups (now about 10 months old) and confirms the foster event was a SUCCESS!