Environmental officials and advocacy groups are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the death of a Mexican gray wolf that wildlife officials were tracking near Flagstaff.
Arizona Game and Fish collared a female wolf near Flagstaff this summer, which a group of students named Hope. She was found dead near a Forest Service road northwest of Flagstaff on Nov. 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
Cyndi Tuell is with the Western Watershed Project.
“We don’t know how many wolves there are or aren’t north of Interstate 40 in the Flagstaff area. Arizona Game and Fish had a collar on Hope, and when she was there. “I knew Hope was there because she had this very bright, obvious collar that was killed,” she said.
The Mexican gray wolf population in the United States had declined to just seven individuals in the 1970s, before recovery efforts began. That number has since grown to more than 250 in Arizona and New Mexico. But Tuel says each death undermines that effort. Killing Mexican gray wolves is illegal under federal law because they are endangered.
