It's been more than a month since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service missed its own deadline to release a well-known endangered Mexican gray wolf and her family back into the wild after she was caught wandering well beyond the species’ recovery area twice in New Mexico.
The agency has now gone dark about the issue — sparking concern that the silence may be politically motivated.
The wolf – nicknamed Asha by schoolchildren – gained attention in 2023 from both conservationists and the public after twice crossing north of Interstate 40 – the boundary of the so-called “Mexican Gray Wolf Experimental Population Area,” where lobos are permitted to live under strict recovery rules.
This behavior is called “dispersing,”and suggests Asha was setting out to find a mate because the area had very few, if any, wolves.
Around 5 to 7 collared wolves have made similar northward journeys since 2017.
These frequent escapades landed Asha at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, where the lobo has been in captivity ever since. In May, she gave birth to five pups at the refuge with a paired mate.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the pack was slated to be released on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch just after elk calving season at the end of June – an opportune time to teach the new pups how to hunt.
But, there were some snags.
“The release was postponed due to logistical ‘things,’ which makes sense,” said Chris Smith, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians.
“Releasing wolves can be a little bit complicated,” Smith added. “But then time started dragging on, and we started to get a little worried.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service did not respond to multiple requests from KUNM for information about Asha’s release.
While Smith is also searching for answers, he isn’t surprised by the silence.
He said the livestock industry has been actively lobbying the Trump administration to defund the wolf’s recovery program and even introduced a bill to delist it from the Endangered Species Act.
In fact, he pointed to a short article by the Sierra County Sentinel, where U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials said they were ordered by a “Deputy Interior Secretary” to halt Asha’s release at the Ladder Ranch.
“That suggests this is a political act, not a logistical thing,” Smith said.
Conservationists like Smith have long advocated to abolish the boundaries that corral these wolves, arguing they are “arbitrary,” unscientific, and prevent genetic diversification with packs up north.
Low population numbers have left modern day Mexican gray wolves with poor genetic diversity from inbreeding.
On the other hand, New Mexico’s ranchers say these wolves threaten their livelihoods and public safety.
Audrey McQueen is a commissioner for Catron County, which sits at the very heart of Mexican gray wolf country in – and around – the Gila National Forest. Her constituents have inundated her with concerns about the lobo.
“That’s what these wolves are. They're monsters because they have no consequences,” McQueen said. “That is not acceptable.”
Recently, McQueen and her fellow commissioners unanimously declared a state of emergency following reports of wolves venturing into residential areas and “extreme” damage to livestock.
The resolution claims the federally managed wolf recovery program is unfair for the county – harming its livestock-based economy and unique way of life. The goal, McQueen said, is to catch the eye of state leadership.
“We don’t have a lot of money,” she said. “We’re just saying, ‘Hey, help us out.’ These wolves were put here. We’ve got to mitigate the problems.”
In addition to monetary aid, the resolution requests the governor deploy the National Guard to protect residents and livestock.
McQueen said Catron has not received a response from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Socorro, Sierra and various other counties have since joined with their own resolutions of support.
Overall, wolf attacks on humans are incredibly rare according to the International Wolf Center. For the Mexican wolf, there has never been a documented case of an attack.
However, an analysis of a March 2025 University of Arizona case study by the American Farm Bureau Federation, a livestock industry lobbying group, found significant economic harm caused by wolves.
In New Mexico alone, researchers estimate gray wolves cost ranchers over $3 million every year – with severe compounding income losses over time.
Though, those who suffer losses from wolf predation can apply for compensation from the federal government for damaged fencing and lost heads of cattle.
Overall, federal data shows a decrease in verified livestock depredations as the lobo population grows.
The conflict has historically fueled efforts to hunt, trap, and poison the animal – almost wiping out the species entirely by the mid 1970s.
Then, that all changed in the late 1990s when the lobo was reintroduced back into the Southwest under the supervision of biologist David Parsons, the first Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“I had the privilege of being the first person to hear them howl in the Gila wilderness, which was, well, a memory burned deep that I'll never forget,” Parsons told KUNM.
Parsons remembers how political pressure, the lack of support from other agencies, and internal conflict culminated into eight years of hard work before a wolf paw stepped back into the wild.
“It was an arduous path, bureaucratically, to get there, and maybe it should be when you're dealing with putting a large predator back on the landscape,” he said.
For Parsons, the current political conflicts are no different. But he said it’s particularly worrisome because the lobo’s genetics are so dismal and, if not addressed, will ultimately lead to extinction.
“That takes a long time,” Parsons said. “The people presently in charge won't live long enough to know whether they've done it right or not.”
Mexican gray wolves are at their highest number ever since reintroduction, with 286 documented in the wild. According to the latest public pack location data, around 41% of the wolf packs were in Catron County.
That, Catron County Commissioner Audrey McQueen says, is the issue. It’s not about politics. It’s about equity for her constituents.
“Why are we even doing this? I think they could cut wolf numbers, put them where they need to be, ease up on the taxpayers' dollars, and ease up on all the cattle loss and all the fear of people losing children,” McQueen said.
So, for now, as ranchers and conservationists continue to spar over where the lobo can – and cannot be – it’s wolves like Asha who symbolize something greater across the Southwest: A wolf, who continues to roam northward, unaware of the invisible boundaries drawn around her.
