One of the last wild Mexican wolves, filmed only a short time before the species went extinct in the wild. Details by the videographer are below the fold.
From the accompanying text on the video’s YouTube page, by Rick LoBello:
Please help save the Mexican wolf by forwarding message to others.
Over the Christmas holidays [2007-8] I transferred to video an old 8mm movie I took during the late 1970s of what I believe was the last or one of the last wild Mexican wolves captured from northern Mexico before the species went extinct in the wild.
As you watch the film keep in mind that this animal, less than a week before I filmed it, was living in the wilds of Mexico. It was one of the last descendants of wild Mexican wolves that had been living in harmony with the land and Native Americans for thousands of years. Their story almost came to a complete end. Fortunately the United States passed the Endangered Species Act. If it wasn’t for that critical piece of legislation I am sure that the Mexican wolf would have gone completely extinct since there were few animals in captivity and virtually none in zoos.
I hope that people who watch this 3 minute video will want to learn more about these beautiful animals and get involved in efforts to help with conservation efforts here in the United States and Mexico.
All Mexican wolves believed to be alive in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico today, are the descendants of the progeny of this wolf and four others. The wolf in the film was captured by Roy McBride who was hired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with the Mexican government to rescue the last wild Mexican wolves in Durango and Chihuahua. Roy and I were fellow graduate students at Sul Ross State University in Alpine where the film was made.
Most of you know that at the El Paso Zoo where I work we have three Mexican wolves and are trying to help save this critically endangered species in many ways including supporting the ongoing reintroduction program in the Southwest. If you have been following the story of this project you know that the descendants of the wolf in this video need our continued support. Please go on the Internet by starting with the El Paso Zoo website at www.elpasozoo.org where you can learn more and get involved. Start with the page we have for the Mexican wolf in the Animals section of Americas. On our site we have a number of important links plus video interviews with members of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Team.
Again with the crying… We humans have a great proclivity for devastation, death and destruction. So many losses, so many extinctions. At least this one we might be able to save, and what a worthy cause that is.
I volunteered on the same property as a Wolf Sanctuary and on occasion we were privileged to look at the wolves they had in captivity and one of the species was the Mexican Wolf. Our organization has since moved off the property and I miss hearing the wolves howling in the evening.
I was lucky to see a wolf out in the “wild” while up in Alaska and I cannot understand or imagine why people do not want to compromise in living in the same space with these magnificent animals.
what a shame.