Chris Smith

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.

One of the largest general fund appropriations in the department’s history, the recommendation from the Legislative Finance Committee – which would be spread across three years – would bring aid for “species of greatest conservation need” with dwindling or threatened populations.

Historically, beavers in the U.S. were killed for their fashionable pelts and unique scent glands typically used in perfumes or food flavoring.Nowadays, while tens of thousands of beavers are still snared, trapped, or shot across the country, there’s a push to introduce more beavers into crucial riparian habitats to combat climate change.

For the second time this year, a well-known wolf nicknamed “Asha” has wandered outside of the established Mexican gray wolf population area in southern New Mexico. Advocates are now calling on the federal and state agencies to abolish the area, which they call “arbitrary” and “political.”