SAFFORD — On Tuesday, the Graham County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding to continue working with four other counties on the issue of the Mexican gray wolf.
Graham County is part of the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization, along with Apache, Navajo, Gila and Greenlee counties, in working with federal and state wildlife agencies on the wolf’s reintroduction to Arizona and New Mexico.
“We continually monitor and counter some of the agencies’ desires to expand the wolf area outside the experimental area,” said Supervisor Paul David, who is Graham County’s representative to EACO.
David said this year EACO is seeking funding for losses suffered by ranchers that aren’t a result of a wolf killing part of a herd. He said that often having a predator in the area will negatively impact cattle birth rates and cattle weights, which will reduce sales revenue.
According to the most recently released data by the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team, there are 257 Mexican gray wolves in the wild in the United States — 144 in New Mexico and 113 in Arizona.
The Mexican gray wolf was first listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1976 and, following two decades of captive breeding, was re-introduced into the wild in 1998.
