Mexican Wolf
Basic Information:
Scientific Name: Canis lupus baileyi
Habitat: Mexican wolves are located in the deserts and mountainous woodlands of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Central Mexico.
Diet: Mexican Wolves are predators and eat deer, elk, wild pigs, rabbits, and rodents.
Size: 2 to 2.8 feet tall / 5 to 5.6 feet long
Weight: 50 to 80 pounds
Lifespan: 11 years according to AZA Species Survival Statistics
Distribution Map:
I.U.C.N. Conservation Status:
What does this mean?
Endangered – a species determined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (I.U.C.N.) to possess a very high risk of extinction as a result of rapid population declines of 50 to more than 70 percent over the previous 10 years (or three generations), a current population size of fewer than 250 individuals, or other factors.
Our Mexican Wolves
Fenrir (Male) – Born May 8, 2016
Ah Tabai (Male) – Born May 8, 2016
Maitland (Male) – Born May 8, 2016
FENRIR IS COMPETING IN MARCH MADNESS 2023!
About Mexican Wolves:
After being wiped out in the U.S. and with only a few animals remaining in Mexico, Mexican gray wolves were bred in captivity and reintroduced to the wild in Arizona beginning in 1998. There are only about 350 Mexican wolves total in captivity and approximately 186 in the wild.
Did You Know?!
- Mexican wolves are the smallest gray wolf subspecies in North America and one of the rarest and most endangered mammals on the continent.
- Wild Mexican wolf populations increased in size by 24% in 2019 but still have a long way to go. Their population size in the wild is only approximately 186 individuals.
- Mexican wolves travel in packs and roam their territories of 30 to 500 square miles together.
- Mexican Wolves have a clearly defined hierarchy within the pack centered around a breeding pair that mates for life.
- A healthy adult Mexican wolf can survive for days or even weeks without food if they have to.
- Mexican wolves have 42 teeth.
- Each spring, the pack’s alpha female gives birth to a litter of pups in a burrowed-out den. She’s the only pack member who has pups, but the whole pack helps raise them by brining food to the den in their own stomachs and regurgitating it for the pups.