Conservationists want the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to let Asha, a Mexican wolf, roam freely/USFWS

"Free Asha!"

That's the message conservationists are sending to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is holding a Mexican gray wolf with a penchant for roaming far and wide in an agency facility in New Mexico, apparently because she hasn't produced a litter.

The Service on Thursday said Asha, who twice in the past has worked her way to northern New Mexico, would not be allowed to go free this year. 

Since December 2023, the last time Asha was taken from near the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, she has been held in a facility near Socorro, New Mexico. Prior to Thursday's announcement, the Service had approved Asha’s release only if she successfully produced pups, said staff at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Asha deserves to be free and wild. She has done nothing wrong — she has followed her instincts into suitable wolf habitat in northern New Mexico and is being punished for it,” said Chris Smith, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians. “Asha belongs in the wild whether she breeds or not; there are some pretty telling layers to this.”

“It’s achingly clear that Asha and her mate could contribute to wolf recovery if only the government would allow it,” added Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Keeping them behind wire mesh for another year shows how politics are prioritized over wolf releases, as well as the livestock industry’s success at blocking wolves north of Interstate 40. Both have contributed to alarming declines in the genetic diversity of Mexican wolves since the early days of reintroduction.”

“We need to let lobos lead, respect their sentience, and learn from Asha and her family,” said Claire Musser, executive director of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project. “The Caldera pack should be free to live their own lives and make their own choices. We should embrace the opportunity to make new scientific discoveries by allowing wolves to teach us, rather than continuing to disrupt and control their lives.”

The Service’s decision to keep Asha in captivity, rather than release her along with her male partner, Arcadia, is consistent with the Arizona Game and Fish Department's long-held opposition to releasing almost any adult captive-born wolves, a release from the Center said. Since 2016 state and federal agencies have instead released young pups removed from their parents, leading to a high disappearance rate for these juvenile wolves.

“This wolf, and others like her, are showing us where the wolves want to be. The human-created maps, with imaginary lines on the ground where wolves are not allowed, ignores what science tells us — that the southern Rocky Mountains are home to the Mexican gray wolf,” said Cyndi Tuell, Western Watersheds Project’s Arizona and New Mexico director. “Making Asha’s freedom dependent on her ability to breed represents an outdated and unscientific philosophy held by wildlife managers that needs to change.”

Smaller cousins of North American gray wolves, Mexican wolves long have been endangered. The predators historically ranged "throughout mountainous regions from central Mexico, through southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and southwestern Texas," according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It's possible that the wolf's historic range touched Saguaro National Park, Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, while Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is thought to be on the fringe of the range.

The Mexican wolf is said to prefer mountain woodlands, such as those found in the Rincon District of Saguaro and the high country of Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks.

“Asha’s value to her species isn’t solely as a breeder — she’s an experienced wild wolf with important knowledge and traditions to share with other wolves,” said Regan Downey, director of education of the Wolf Conservation Center. “Depriving her of the wild is also depriving wild lobos of her keen instincts and is yet another setback on the path to true recovery,”

“The wild lands of northern New Mexico are incomplete without lobos,” said Sally Paez, staff attorney for New Mexico Wild. “It’s time for wildlife managers to use their authority to support the natural dispersal of Mexican wolves into suitable landscapes such as Valles Caldera and the Jemez Mountains to restore balance to our treasured public lands and ecosystems.”

Asha is one of several wolves who have made headlines recently by repeatedly dispersing north of I-40. Anubis, a male lobo, made two journeys to the Flagstaff area in Arizona before being killed in January 2022. One of two wolves currently roaming north of I-40 in Arizona has been captured and collared in an attempt to capture the second wolf so they can be relocated.

Conservation groups say the arbitrary I-40 boundary beyond which wolves cannot go is the result of state pressure to restrict the recovery of Mexican wolves to a limited portion of the Southwest. But leading scientists have said three interconnected subpopulations of at least 200 wolves each need to be present in the Southwest to achieve recovery. The southern Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon ecoregion represent excellent opportunities for two new subpopulations, along with the existing population of roughly 260 lobos in the greater Gila bioregion.

“Her value does not depend on whether she can breed,” said Smith. “She is a wild wolf who has proven she can take care of herself in the wild, and should be allowed to do so.”