Officials discuss recapture protocols as Colorado gray wolf skirts New Mexico border near Raton

The species, hunted nearly to extinction by the 1950s in Colorado, has made a comeback in the two years since the state began releasing them as part of its voter-approved reintroduction program. Now there are at least 29 gray wolves in the Centennial State.

"There is an agreement with Utah, New Mexico and Arizona that any wolf from Colorado could be recaptured and returned to the state," said Travis Duncan, public information supervisor for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. A wolf that goes into New Mexico, Duncan added, "is considered federally endangered and is not covered under Colorado’s 10(j) rule."

The 10(j) rule allows a species to be designated an "experimental population," which typically means authorities are able to relax federal Endangered Species Act standards by which the species would typically be protected — such as under what circumstances a wolf may be killed or harassed. As it stands, gray wolves are fully protected under federal law in New Mexico.

"This was developed to protect the genetic integrity of the Mexican [gray] wolf, a separately listed entity under the Federal Endangered Species Act," Duncan said. "The genetic uniqueness of the Mexican wolf would be compromised, and recovery made more difficult, if genetics of northern gray wolves were prematurely intermixed with the unique subspecies of [Mexican] gray wolves."

President Donald Trump lifted gray wolf protections near the end of his first term in office, but they soon were reimposed by a judge. At the end of last month, however, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert introduced a bill to delist the gray wolf again, asserting in a press release: "Gray wolves are threatening the livelihoods of our ranchers and farmers with attacks on livestock because our agriculture community has their hands tied by out-of-date policies and progressive legal activism."

In New Mexico, there are at least 257 Mexican gray wolves living in the wild since a reintroduction program was launched in 1998, according to a five-year evaluation released in December by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the agency tasked with administering the federal Endangered Species Act.

The evaluation highlighted recent annual increases in the overall population of Mexican wolves, but "downplayed high mortality rates and a lack of releases in Mexico," according a press release from Western Watersheds Project.

“We are deeply concerned that the Fish and Wildlife Service is ignoring the troubling trend in the Mexican population of lobos and has tried to distract the public’s attention with fairly limited successes for the program in the U.S.,” said Cyndi Tuell, Arizona and New Mexico director at Western Watersheds Project. “For lobo recovery to be successful, we need at least three viable subpopulations in suitable habitat in the U.S. as well, but we have only one.”

Michael Robinson, senior conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Taos News in 2022 that, aside from the current population area in Southern New Mexico, scientists determined years ago another potential Mexican wolf habitat exists: "the Grand Canyon region, including the North Rim and the South Rim. And the third was the southern Rocky Mountains including the area around Taos and extending into southern Colorado," Robinson said at the time.

Currently, the experimental population of Mexican wolves is restricted to below Interstate 40 in Southern New Mexico and Arizona and part of Northern Mexico, although Mexican wolves cross the interstate heading north on a semi-regular basis. One female Mexican wolf migrated as far as Colfax County last year before she was captured near Angel Fire.

“Dispersal events like this are often in search of a mate," Aislinn Maestas, public affairs specialist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife said at the time. "As there are no other known wolves in the area, she was unlikely to be successful, and risked being mistaken for a coyote and shot."

In November, a female Mexican wolf was found killed west of Flagstaff; Mexican wolves living north of Interstate 40 are fully protected under the ESA, including its ban on trapping and other harm.

“The territory she claimed north of Interstate 40 and outside of the official recovery area demonstrated that suitable and appropriate Mexican wolf habitat exists in northern Arizona," Claire Musser, executive director at Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, said in a press release. "The federal and state agencies should be listening to what she had to say and allow wolves to become active agents in their recovery.”

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish did not respond to a request for comment regarding the possibility of gray wolves migrating from Colorado, but the department's 2025–26 hunting rules note, "It is illegal to kill or injure a wolf because it is near you or your property; kill or injure a wolf if it attacks your pet; kill or injure a wolf feeding on dead livestock; enter posted closures around release pens, active dens and rendezvous sites; shoot a wolf because of mistakenly identifying it as a coyote or anything else.

"However, it is legal to kill, injure or harass a wolf if the wolf is in the act of killing, wounding or biting cattle, sheep, horses, mules, burros or dogs owned by you and which are on private or tribal land," or if killing a wolf is "in defense of human life," the rule states.

Colorado residents in large numbers in urban areas essentially approved the wolf reintroduction program, which was put to voters on a statewide ballot. Colorado Parks and Wildlife recently denied rural Coloradans' petition citing conflict with cattle and work dogs among other reasons to slow down the wolf reintroduction effort.

The state instead said it would create a team of trained range riders with connections to local communities who can be deployed to support livestock producers at short notice, and pledged to more thoroughly assist with cattle depredations and prevention techniques.

"It is possible" gray wolves might migrate to New Mexico from Colorado, Duncan acknowledged. "But as stated above there is an agreement with neighboring states, including New Mexico, that any wolf from Colorado could be recaptured and returned to the state. As wolf population numbers grow, some wolves will migrate to establish new territories."