Pity poor Asha, the lonely Mexican gray wolf who has wandered around a good chunk of New Mexico this year looking for a proper mate, but still hasn’t found the right guy.
In June, I wrote about how the animal — ignominiously identified by federal wildlife officials as wolf #F2754 — had strayed from her relocation in the Gila country to areas as far away as Taos in northern New Mexico. She has a collar which allows her to be tracked.
After her first re-capture, she was placed with a male gray wolf at a holding location in central New Mexico in hopes that the two would breed and have a litter of wolf pups. And although the two animals got along, they apparently never “got it on.” After the failed arranged romance, Asha was released back into the Gila wilderness.
Now she’s been tracked again wandering far away from the Gila country, this time in the Jemez mountains north and west of Albuquerque.
Because she seems focused on being somewhere north of Interstate 40 instead of southwestern New Mexico, authorities now say Asha may be allowed to just keep roaming until she finds the right guy.
A representative of a group known as Defenders of Wildlife says the wolf’s movements may show she is interested in getting as far north as Colorado to find a mate and some new digs.
“This is a clear sign that wolves will again roam from the northern Rockies in Canada to the Sierra of Mexico if we let them,” the representative said.
An official representing the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association says they are more concerned about the roaming wolf population. They claim wolves kill their livestock and pose a danger to humans.
I get that. But I’d really like to spot one in the wild some day — at a really safe distance — and hear one howl.
aero-cordero.com 