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- [Narrator] The Mexican gray wolf, the lobo, was systematically hunted and poisoned out of existence by the government. As ranching spread across the Southwest, wolves were branded as a threat to livestock. And by the early 1900s, killing them had become the official policy. Bounties, traps, and poison carcasses laid across the range. By the 1970s, only seven wolves were left in the wild. Today, we're looking at a very different story.
- To think about seven wolves being where we began and to think about where we are now, Mexican wolves have come back from the brink.
- Our guest today is Bailey Cadena, AZA's co-vice program lead for the SAFE Mexican Wolf Program, and part of the Coexistence Conservation Team at the Cincinnati Zoo. Today, we'll learn how a species that was down to just a handful of wolves clawed its way back, and why its recovery depends as much on people as it does on the animals themselves.
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Welcome to "Back From the Brink" from "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." I am Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant.
- [Narrator] Each episode, we're going deep on a single species, one that went to the very edge of disappearing and on the fight to bring it back.
- To tell the story of how I became involved in the Mexican Gray Wolf Program, I have to zoom out just a little bit to share that my teams and our zoo's approach to conservation really is supporting communities that live alongside wildlife. When we think about wildlife, I think it's really important to know that where there's wildlife, there are people, and people often are the heroes of the story within conservation. And through my work wearing one of my two hats at Cincinnati Zoo, I was brought into SAFE Mexican Wolf Program. This program, it's been absolutely exceptional. And going back to those zookeepers and animal care staff that are vital to the work that zoos do, they're also vital to this story. Why I was brought in is we wanted to expand the reach and the impact that zoos could play in this story forever and ever, but we also were ready to expand into how can we support communities living alongside wolves as zoos? And so that's kind of where I started to come in, and I am now AZA's SAFE Mexican Wolf co-vice program lead.
- Like, three snaps for you because that is a long title, but a very revered one. You know, you're right. I do know a lot about the SAFE program for Mexican wolves. I do know a lot about what's going on with Mexican wolves in the US right now, but that's because I was able to like join the project that you worked on for a couple of days to film it for "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom: Protecting the Wild." I think that probably if anyone was asked to like close their eyes and visualize a wolf, they would be able to. But can you describe to us like what is a Mexican gray wolf? What does it look like? Where does it live? Like, what is kind of the biology and ecology in general, general about this species?
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- So the Mexican gray wolf is the smallest and most genetically distinct subspecies of the gray wolf. They historically were found in the Southwest US and throughout northern Mexico, and that remains true today due to these recovery efforts. Today, they are found in the US states of Arizona and New Mexico and the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Durango.
- You know, as typical with lots of wild animals, particularly in North America, at one point they were abundant. And so tell me about the trajectory from when they were abundant to, you know, a couple decades ago. Like, what happened? What drove their population decline?
- So by the 1970s, settlers had expanded west into the area of the historic range of Mexican wolves. And with them, they brought their livestock in abundant numbers. And there was a culture of dominating the landscape, and the livestock that were brought in were brought in such abundant numbers so rapidly that the populations of the hoofstock, the herbivores that were there before then, didn't have a chance to really adapt, and they started decreasing pretty rapidly due to competition. And as a result of that, wolves, among other predators, were predating on folks' livestock. And essentially a whole anti-predator campaign that I'm sure hit on the bears that you love as well.
- Oh, yeah. Mountain lions, bears and wolves.
- Mountain lions, yeah, was initiated, and eventually they were extirpated in the United States, and there was only of tens left in northern Mexico.
- Oh, I didn't realize. They were gone completely from the wild in the US.
- Yeah. - Wow. And just a dozen or, you know, like a very small number left in Mexico as far as we know.
- Mm-hmm. - This is important because for a lot of species that we are discussing here on "Back From the Brink," you know, maybe we got down to a couple thousand, you know, sometimes a few hundred, but to know that they were gone in this country, that really, I mean, that really hits.
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- [Narrator] You've probably heard the name Marlin Perkins. He was the original host of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom," but he was more than a face on television. In 1971, he and his wife Carol founded the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center in Eureka, Missouri. They started with a single enclosure and just five wolves.
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- Five wolves were found in the wild in Durango, and there were a few others that were in professional care at the time. And those wolves were transported to the Endangered Wolf Center, which has direct ties to the work that "Wild Kingdom" and then "Back From the Brink" is involved in.
- Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we can spend a minute talking about the Endangered Wolf Center and was brought to life by Marlin Perkins, who was the original host, one of the original hosts of "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." He really, I mean, he started the show. His legacy is so important. And he also was truly a conservationist off camera. So he had a place at the St. Louis Zoo. He began the Endangered Wolf Center. I mean, his legacy of impact truly lives on, and it's something that makes me really proud that he wasn't just a host. He was walking the talk. And so the five that were taken from the wild that might have been the last five and they probably were facing, you know, a pretty dire situation were brought to St. Louis.
- Absolutely. And so it feels as though our beginnings and the beginnings of "Wild Kingdom," we just come from the same roots. And I was lucky enough to visit the Endangered Wolf Center for the first time, interestingly enough, just last week. You can feel the magic of it, and you can feel the way in which Marlin and Carol Perkins' vision of supporting the recovery of the America's canids, it still rings true today. And that's where it all began.
- And so I imagine that at least one of those wolves brought in was female because they were able to provide protection for these wolves so that they could do some breeding. And this was decades ago. And so throughout those decades, I mean, like, what does the trajectory look like?
- There were no wolves on the landscape for about 20 to 30 years as this breeding effort began. And this is where I like to say zoos have been one of the heroes of the story of Mexican wolves, without a doubt. Mexican wolves would not be here if it were not for the zoos that have been invested in this species' recovery. Through the breeding efforts of these zoos, the number went from zero in the wild in 1998. I'm gonna out my age here. I was born in '97. So in my lifetime, we have gone from zero wolves in the wild. In '98, the first were reintroduced in the US, and in 2011, the first were introduced in Mexico. And today we stand at a minimum of 319 Mexican wolves in Arizona, New Mexico, and a minimum of 25 in Mexico. We still have a long ways to go, but what an amount of work to be done over the last 30 years.
- I mean, I have to applaud that because that is a short amount of time, you know, for an animal like this, wide-ranging. You know, the birth rates are not, you know, they're not rabbits. (chuckles) They're not giving birth every couple months, an animal that faces a lot of threats in its natural environment, this is a huge feat to have a number over 300 and hopefully growing.
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- [Narrator] Ecologists call wolves keystone animals in the same way the centerstone of an arch holds every other stone in place. A keystone, like the wolf, holds the whole landscape together.
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- You know, a lot of folks have this understanding that there is a direct impact on the environment when we have an animal like wolves in an ecosystem or when we don't have it. Has there been any discussion or measurement or evidence that those years when there were no wolves that the ecosystem changed or that it has changed since they've returned?
- So I think the best-studied ecosystem, and in response to this question is obviously Yellowstone, the Yellowstone wolves. There's stories of rivers changing and restoring their natural hydrology as a result of wolves being back. So flowing in the classic river bendy way that we all know and are familiar with. And when I first heard that, I just was like, "How could the presence of a wolf impact a river flowing?" And folks shared with me that it was a result of the presence of predators, wolves made it so that the hoofstock, the elk, et cetera, eating grass had to move more. And so they weren't overgrazing in one area sedentarily and then moving to another. And that movement of those hooves, think about those hooves on that soil and really kneading in different grasses, established natural hydrology. And so that is, I think we can take lessons. Obviously the Southwest US and northern Mexico is a different ecosystem than Yellowstone, but I think that undoubtedly the presence of wolves has helped restore some of these components.
- You know, I am a bear biologist, and so they're also a top predator. You know, just the understanding the trophic cascades, like the food web, you know, like these predators eat animals that are herbivores, the herbivores eat grass, the grass grows in soil, the soil impacts water systems. So if we have no predators, then we might have too many herbivores, which means too much grass is getting eaten. There's not enough roots in the soil. We face some erosion into the water, and then we can, you know, ideally reverse that.
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- [Narrator] The ecosystem argument is clear, but getting wolves back into the ecosystem required a solution that nobody had tried before, and it started in a zoo nursery.
- So someone listening to this podcast might think, "Okay, the Mexican wolves were vulnerable because they were being extirpated in the wild. So folks took them into human care to keep them protected and to breed them again, and then they just brought those adults that had been bred back to the wild." But no, it is not necessarily adults that were being relocated back to the wild. Can you tell me about how you all use wolf pups to rewild?
- In the early years, it was those adults. The packs had to be reestablished, but once we had wolves on the landscape that knew how to act like wolves, that knew how to hunt, that knew how to survive and really thrive as much as a wolf can, right, the life of a wolf is very difficult. We looked across the landscape, and we really heard a few needs across the landscape. One is people living alongside wolves want and need wolves that act like wild wolves. And two, we always want to be doing everything that we can to support the genetic health of the population in the wild. And the answer to these big questions is actually quite adorable, as you alluded to and got to experience. I haven't yet got to experience the magic that you did.
- Oh, it'll change you. (chuckles)
- I believe it. I believe it. Essentially, we as a program have breeding efforts every year. So there are wolves paired based on the best genetics, and those mom and dad have a litter of pups. And through some magic and a lot of expertise and coordination, they're able to time the birth of pups that are born in human care with those that are born in wild dens. And pups born in zoos that are part of this program, some of them are taken from their moms in human care, and they're put into wild dens. And so I recently watched again the episode of "Wild Kingdom," and I just remember, Rae, you sharing, like, "These pups will never know that they were born in a zoo. They will always know themselves to be wild wolves."
- Because they're taken when they're days old, I mean, I think in my experience, deliberately before their eyes open.
- Yeah. There is so much that goes into the care and ensuring that the pups are well taken care of, the moms are well taken care of, the packs both in the wild and human care are well taken care of. And it just is this absolutely beautiful answer to a lot of very real parts of recovery.
- So these pups are adorable. The moms are superheroes. They accept these foster pups and make them wild, grow them up wild, which is just in and of itself already just incredible. And so I'm curious, like what's the best-case scenario like for now, for the future, or even for a fostered or wild Mexican wolf? I mean, what does a healthy population kind of look like on the ground? Like, their specific pack structure, like, you know, what is even survival rate like? Like, what are we kind of expecting under the best-case scenario?
- So for wild wolves, what you're really looking for is a pack structure that's you've got mom, you've got dad, you have pups from a year or two before, and then you have this year's pups. So siblings helping raise siblings, everybody playing together, play hunting and whatnot. And to me, success for this program is not limited, or to the recovery effort, is not limited to success with the wolves, but it really also is the recovery of a culture, the recovery of humans living alongside these wolves. If you think about it, if you became a rancher in the late '70s in the Southwest US, you learned how to ranch in an ecosystem without wolves. But if you were born around the same time that I was, as I shared earlier, you've only known ranching with wolves. So that's a generation that has been able to culturally recover in a sense, right? The recovery story is not limited to wolves. It also includes communities living alongside those wolves.
- Wow, that's a really cool way to put it and to think about it, that everyone's kind of changing and growing together at the same time in the same ecosystem.
- If anybody listening has ever gotten the experience of watching a wild pack run, if you've seen parents run with their puppies, there's this absolutely raw feeling that it evokes in me. And I think that that is recovery, the resilience. There is not the state that we will one day reach and then everything will be perfect. Coexistence is hard. It's ever-changing. What works today won't work tomorrow. What worked 20 years ago might work in 20 years. And really being committed to the recovery effort of the wolves and meeting the needs of communities living with them, that's the work. That's recovery. (warm rustic music)
- [Narrator] Bringing back a predator means learning to live alongside one. That's coexistence.
- Bailey, tell me some anecdotes about coexistence, like especially about like innovations or, you know, just wacky things that folks are doing that are allowing them to live in the, you know, shared ecosystems with these Mexican wolves.
- One extraordinary team that I love to talk about is Tonkawa. They're an organization that is responsible for monitoring wolves in Chihuahua, Mexico, but they've really taken it upon themselves to be a community-driven organization. They've seen that long-term wolf recovery is not possible if the ranchers that live alongside them that keep these areas, this landscape, suitable habitat for Mexican wolves, these alpine desert areas that has some of the hardest ranching in the US and Mexico, they keep it suitable habitat for Mexican wolves. And one of my favorite stories is the idea of dog treats, wolf-friendly dog treats.
- Okay. Say more about that. Wolf-friendly dog treats. Break it down for me.
- For ranching communities that are living alongside wolves, one of the ways that Tonkawa, their team has helped unlock the value of having wolves on this land, sharing space with people, is by asking those communities, "How can we help?" And what those communities have said is, "We want some market analysis done. How can we find a market where we can sell our beef at a higher price per unit cow?" And Tonkawa was like, "All right, let's figure that out." And they were able to find a market where ranchers can sell their beef at three times the profit that they were before. And in doing so and having this relationship with Tonkawa, Tonkawa being present and being very transparent that they're there because they love the wolves and they were there to support the communities, those ranchers that have had that value unlocked of tripling the profit for their unit of cow have agreed to decrease the number of cows that they have in their herd by half. So that means less interaction potential between wolves and livestock, more regenerative ag practices. To me, it sometimes just feels like magic, the work that this team of four has been able to do alongside these ranchers. And the dog treats will allow for additional markets.
- I have to say, I got worried 'cause I thought you were gonna suggest that the key to coexistence is like giving the wolves dog treats to eat. But no, you're saying that- - Absolutely not.
- dog treats are made of ingredients from these ranches that do wolf-friendly ranching, and they can be sold with this tagline, like, "Supports wildlife, you know, choose this brand over another brand because we are contributing to conservation." And that is brilliant.
- I think so as well. And thank you for distilling it down in that way. Sometimes the story of coexistence can be so complex the closer and closer you get to it because there's so many awesome components of it. In this work, when you are supporting communities living with wildlife, it feels like the opposite of feeling like there's a lack of hope in the world. I come home from work and day in and day out hearing stories of success that feel like, "How could they be hitting success here and here and here?" And I think it's important for people to know that this work is happening, this community-led work is happening, and it is hopeful, and there are people doing absolutely incredible work. This is our 10th year of population growth in the states. It's also our 10th year of pup fostering. And I believe that long term, what the success looks like is not only the appropriate amount of Mexican wolves on the landscape, but also the appropriate support going to these communities.
- I think what's interesting in conservation is that like our goal is always to put ourselves out of a job.
- Yes. - You know? But knowing that humans have so much impact on the viability of these species, we may not put ourselves out of a job even if the species recovers, because there may likely just be work that needs to be done as societies change and landscapes change and growth happens just to make sure that coexistence is still at the top.
- When we think about the life of the wolf or these ecosystems that include people, you've got your wolves, your livestock, people, elk, rivers, all of these things. Change is our greatest constant. And I resonate deeply with what you shared that we should constantly be trying to work ourselves out of a job in conservation. And maybe with change as our only constant, we're working ourselves into a new job.
- Into a new job. Yeah.
- And that's changing, changing and putting autonomy in the hands of people that should have decision-making power to be able to do what they need as Tonkawa is supporting ranchers and...
- Bailey, I have to thank you so much for talking to us about this awesome, awesome, awesome animal that I'm sure a lot of people didn't even know was a subspecies of the gray wolf that we have here in North America. Thank you for joining us and for representing the Cincinnati Zoo so well. You know, again, shout-out to the people who are working hands-on with the animals under human care at the zoo, and shout-out to people like you who are doing completely different work that is still in service to the overall conservation efforts that the zoo has. You're awesome. We'll have you back anytime.
- Thank you so, so much. Those of you who are interested in learning more, we have a new area for Mexican wolves opening this fall. So come see Fiona, come learn more about the awesome work involved in this program, and then to see Mexican wolves and hopefully a pack running together yourselves.
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- [Narrator] Seven wolves, a single enclosure, and people who refuse to give up. Today, the lobo runs wild again across the American Southwest, and the work of bringing it back is still going on.
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- And it needs people in its corner. Follow the show, leave us a review, and send this one to someone who needs to hear a good comeback story right now. I'm Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and I'll see you next time on "Back From the Brink" from "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."
- [Narrator] The "Back From the Brink" podcast is sponsored by "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom," hosted by Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, narrated by Peter Gros. Executive producers are Jen Wulf and Jenny Van Soelen, podcast production by Lower Street Media.
