Mexican gray wolf

The Mexican gray wolf, or lobo, is the smallest subspecies of gray wolf and the most endangered in North America. Its ancestors crossed from Eurasia into North America between about 70,000 and 23,000 years ago. Its sister group, the Beringian wolf, went extinct; the lobo survived.

Lobos once roamed the Madrean pine-oak woodlands of southeastern Arizona, New Mexico, western Texas and Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental, hunting white-tailed deer. In pre-Columbian Mexico the wolf was revered as a symbol of war and of the sun, and it held significance for the Apache. By the mid-1900s, trapping, poisoning and hunting, largely by ranchers, had all but wiped it out, and pups were taken from dens.

Listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1976, the lobo was saved when the US and Mexico captured the last five wild wolves between 1977 and 1980. Two more were added in 1995, so every Mexican wolf alive today descends from just seven animals. Releases began in Arizona's Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in 1998, a wild-born generation followed by 2002, and Mexico began its own releases in 2011. Today an estimated 319 lobos live in the US and 45 in Mexico, with about 380 more in captivity.

Low genetic diversity is a serious threat, but unlike the critically endangered red wolf, the lobo does not breed with coyotes in the wild. On 4 September 2026 an executive order started a 90-day review to remove Endangered Species Act protection for gray wolves; it ends in early December 2026. For now the lobo remains protected, and Earthjustice is fighting in the courts to keep it that way.