Wildlife officials are offering a reward of $103,500 for information as they probe the death of a protected wolf in Arizona.
A female Mexican gray wolf , which is protected by federal law under the Endangered Species Act, was found dead on Nov. 7 in an area northwest of Flagstaff, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department said in a joint statement. They have not shared details about the animal’s cause of death but noted that “the mortality was not related to agency management actions.”
Officials said they initially documented the deceased wolf, called F2979, over the summer, when she was captured and given a GPS tracking collar before being released back into the wild in July. The animal was tagged outside the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area , a designated space near Flagstaff where conservation efforts have focused for decades. Following a period in the 1970s when the population of Mexican wolves in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico declined almost to the point of extinction , the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started releasing Mexican wolves born through a breeding program into the conservation area in 1998.