Congress is attempting to silence the quintessential call of the lobo across the American Southwest

The Mexican gray wolf, or lobo, is the smallest subspecies of gray wolf and also one of the most endangered carnivores in the world. After lobos were nearly wiped out by the U.S. government and private parties through aggressive poisoning and trapping that began in 1915, reintroduction began in 1998 in remote areas of New Mexico and Arizona, including within such iconic Wildernesses as the Gila and the Blue Range.

Since then, lobo recovery has been slow, fragile, and turbulent, with fewer than 300 Mexican gray wolves living in the wild in the entire United States today.

Lobos are an integral part of Wilderness and the ecology of the American Southwest. The Gila, Blue Range, Aldo Leopold, Bear Wallow, Escudilla, Mount Baldy, Apache Kid, and Withington Wildernesses form important core habitat for this rare subspecies of wolves.

Unfortunately, anti-wolf members of Congress are attempting to silence the quintessential call of the lobo across the American Southwest with a dangerous bill that would remove the endangered Mexican gray wolf from protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and would limit what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can consider in listing them in the future.

Representative Paul Gosar’s (R-AZ) so-called “Enhancing Safety for Animals Act” (H.R. 4255) would prematurely strip away ESA protections from Mexican gray wolves and push this critically imperiled animal closer to extinction by opening the door for widespread killing of lobos, including potentially within their wilderness refuge.

The Wilderness areas of the American Southwest would be considerably less wild without Mexican gray wolves, so please contact your representative and urge them to oppose H.R. 4255.