Possible gray wolf seen on northern NM ranch

SANTA FE " A possible gray wolf has been sighted on a ranch in northern New Mexico, raising the prospect that wolves may have migrated into the state from the Northern Rockies where they were reintroduced more than a decade ago.

There's been no confirmed gray wolf in the wild in New Mexico since the animals were exterminated from the state in the early and mid-1900s.

The animal was seen several times and photographed on Vermejo Park Ranch, which is owned by media mogul Ted Turner. It was first spotted about a month ago, but government biologists have not been able to capture the animal to obtain genetic material to confirm whether it's a wolf.

"We don't know what it is. It looks like a gray wolf. It looks like a big black gray wolf. Where did it come from? We don't know," Mike Phillips, executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund in Bozeman, Mont., said Monday in a telephone interview.

"It's not a coyote. It doesn't mean it's not a socialized gray wolf that somebody let go and it just wandered around and ended up in Vermejo. And it doesn't mean it's not a gray wolf that came out of the northern Rockies."

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been reintroducing the Mexican gray wolf, a subspecies of the larger gray wolf, in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.

But the markings on the animal seen on Turner's ranch were not that of a Mexican gray wolf, according to Elizabeth Slown, a spokesman for the agency in Albuquerque.

Slown said the agency took the sighting seriously enough to send one of its wolf biologists from Arizona to the ranch last week. Traps were put out but nothing was caught. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish also participated.

"Our biologists have seen photos, but they haven't seen the animal," said Slown.

Game and Fish spokesman Marty Frentzel said the government agencies hoped to capture the animal on the ranch, attach a radio collar and then track it. A gray wolf in New Mexico would be protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

Turner's ranch covers more than 900 square miles near the New Mexico-Colorado line and offers prime habitat for a wolf " large populations of elk and deer along with diverse ecosystems ranging from forests and nearly 13,000-foot peaks along the ranch's western flank to prairie along its southern and eastern borders.

Phillips said he's confident the animal isn't a coyote because it's not gray and tawny, but biologists and ranch workers have not found any scat that's confirmed from the animal.

"The mystery may never be solved," said Phillips.

Phillips knows wolves. He worked on reintroducing the gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s before joining Turner's organization.

Because the animal is black, he said, "that just significantly reduces the odds that it's anything but a wolf or wolf-dog hybrid or a socialized wolf."

Ranch manager Mark Kossler said the animal was first seen feeding on the carcass of an elk that died during the winter. The animal has since moved to a higher elevation and probably is following the ranch's elk herd, he said. It was last seen several days ago.

"The biologists tell us that wolf-hybrids oftentimes are very difficult to tell from a wolf," said Kossler, who is from Montana and has seen wolves there. "So it's hard to say. It certainly looks like a wolf."

Wolves have thrived in the northern Rockies " Idaho, Montana and Wyoming " since their reintroduction. The federal government earlier this year removed wolves in that region from the endangered species list. That allows Idaho, Wyoming and Montana to manage wolves and the states are planning public hunts.

Phillips said wolves can travel great distances. Although they typically move in packs, it's not uncommon for lone animals to explore new territory, he said.

In 2004, a dead wolf was found in Colorado along Interstate 70 west of Denver and its radio collar showed that it was from Yellowstone National Park.

"Northern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado is a motherlode for gray wolves," said Phillips, because of its terrain, big tracts of public and private lands and plentiful elk and deer.

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On the Net:

Vermejo Park Ranch: http://www.vermejoparkranch.com