PHOENIX (AP) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the death of a Mexican gray wolf in eastern Arizona.
An agency spokesman says the carcass of an adult male gray wolf from the Bluestem Pack was found July 6 west of Big Lake in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
Details about how the wolf died weren’t available Wednesday. The carcass has been sent to a forensics laboratory in Oregon for examination.
Fish and Wildlife officials say the wolf was first released into Arizona’s Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in 2006. They say it’s the third documented death of a Mexican wolf in that recovery area this year.
There are at least 58 such wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico since the federal government began a reintroduction effort in 1998.