PHOENIX (AP) — Officials with the Mexican wolf recovery program say they’re finding evidence of success in cross-fostering.
The process involves moving very young pups from a captive litter to a wild litter of similar age so that the pups will be taken in and raised by the wild pack. It is one strategy to help the Mexican wolf build up a sustainable population in its native habitat in Arizona and New Mexico.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department, Chicago Zoological Society, Endangered Wolf Center and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are collaborating on the cross-foster effort.
The entities reported that in April, five Mexican wolf pups were born at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois.
Two of those pups were placed in the den of the Arizona-based Elk Horn Pack of wild wolves with the intention that the pack’s adults would raise them with their own litter.
Last month, wildlife biologists captured a male pup associated with the pack and confirmed it originated at the Brookfield Zoo. They collared the male to track its movements in the future.
At least one additional cross-fostered pup, born in May at the Endangered Wolf Center in Missouri was confirmed to be with the Panther Creek Pack in Arizona.
This is the first time since 1998 when the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program began releasing Mexican wolves back into the wild that pups born in the captive breeding program have been successfully cross-fostered into the wild.
In 2015, biologists fostered two pups from one wild litter to another, and one of those pups has been confirmed to still be alive.