During the early morning hours of May 5, 2024, five of Mexican gray wolf Trumpet’s newborn pups left for an exciting adventure – the siblings, one boy and four girls, were bound for the wild! 

The primary goal of the Wolf Conservation Center’s participation in the Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) program is to recover endangered wild wolf populations. Mexican gray wolf adult and family group releases to the wild began in 1998 and although releases look a bit different now, they still occur via pup fosters. Captive-to-wild fostering is a coordinated effort by the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team and the SAFE program and allows genetically valuable captive-born pups to become integrated into the wild Mexican wolf population. 

With the assistance of LightHawk Conservation Flying and Dr. Renee Bayha of Pound Ridge Veterinary Center, the five pups flew from New York to New Mexico, where they were met by the IFT and taken to a wild wolf den. The wild den contained pups similar in age and because wolves are incredibly nurturing, biologists knew that the wild mom would readily accept the captive pups as her own when she returned to the den. Over the next few months, the IFT will offer supplementary food caches for the family – a thank you, in a sense, for feeding extra mouths.  

“Only Fosters” Mentality Flawed

While we are incredibly excited for these pups to potentially have long wild lives ahead of them, we must acknowledge Trumpet’s unknowing sacrifice. Over the years, 12 of Trumpet’s 24 pups have been fostered and only one, Slides, is known to still be alive in the wild. Each spring, as we watch Trumpet’s belly get bigger and bigger, we’re filled with bittersweet emotions because we know the coming few weeks are always bittersweet for her, too. She’s welcoming pups, feeding them, grooming them, learning their unique squeaks and grunts, only to have most of them leave without explanation. Wolves can count (better than dogs, in fact!) and wolves can grieve, and while she still has two remaining pups to care for it would be cruel of us to assume that she doesn’t feel any loss or sadness.  

Join us in sending congratulatory howls to the pups in New Mexico, and please send loving howls to Trumpet; without her, we would not have fostered a single pup over the years. Hopefully we’ll one day see adults and family groups released again – methods that would truly improve genetic diversity in the wild and would keep families intact.  

About Mexican Gray Wolves

The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) or “lobo” is the most genetically distinct lineage of gray wolves in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the most endangered mammals in North America. By the mid-1980s, hunting, trapping, and poisoning caused the extinction of lobos in the wild, with only a handful remaining in captivity. In 1998 the wolves were reintroduced into the wild as part of a federal reintroduction program under the Endangered Species Act. Today in the U.S., there is a single wild population comprised of 257 individuals – a 6% increase from the 242 counted at the end of 2022.