Groups push for special wolf protections

Three conservation groups have filed petitions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, asking that the Mexican gray wolf be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act as a subspecies separate from other gray wolves. Gray wolves in most of the lower 48 states, including the Mexican wolves, are protected as endangered species. But the groups contend the species-wide listing hasn't been sufficient to recover Mexican wolves in the Southwest. With the petitions, WildEarth Guardians, The Rewilding Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity hope to force the agency to update a decades-old recovery plan for the Mexican wolf. In 1998, the government began reintroducing Mexican wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico line in a 4 million acre-plus territory. AP