Business leaders call for Mexican wolf restoration in Grand Canyon area

Over 60 business leaders have urged the federal government to release endangered Mexican gray wolves into the Grand Canyon region, expanding the predator's habitat beyond eastern Arizona.

The group submitted a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service criticizing the agency's long-awaited recovery plan released in June because it confined the recovery zone south of Interstate 40.

The business leaders include owners, managers and independent contractors, among others, from the tourism and service industries in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Gray wolves in the region would benefit the tourism industry and the ecosystem, the business leaders wrote, citing such benefits associated with gray wolf recovery near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana.

Researchers at the University of Montana have estimated wolf tourism brings $35.5 million a year to the Yellowstone region. And gray wolf reintroduction at the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in Arizona and New Mexico benefits the economy by an estimated $3.2 to 3.8 million a year, according researchers at Defenders of Wildlife and State University of New York...more

This video accompanied the article on arizonacentral.com