More Wolves Released
In Eastern Arizona

TUCSON, Ariz. — Four more "endangered" Mexican gray wolves have been released in the Apache National Forest.

Two adults and two pups born last year were released Monday after spending two months in an acclimation pen at Turkey Creek north of Clifton, near the New Mexico line about 160 miles east of Phoenix.

``These wolves were fairly anxious to run free. One of the wolves was out before the biologists could retreat from the pen,'' said Dave Parsons, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mexican gray wolf recovery program,

Two other adults have been free since December, but the program got off to a rocky start in 1998 when five of 11 animals released were shot. No arrests have been made.

Plans call for another 11 wolves to be put into the wild this spring during the breeding season. That includes a pair that will be carried by pack mules in specially built crates in mid-April into the Blue Range Primitive Area in eastern Arizona.

That pair will be released directly into the roadless area without any transition period, Parsons said. ``It gives us a chance to put wolves in a much more remote area, deep in the Blue Range,'' he said.

All the animals being released will have fluorescent collars, so hunters can distinguish them from coyotes, and radio transmitters so biologists can track them.

The federal and state wolf program has changed its approach in its second year after criticism from ranchers and other local residents. Most of the release sites will now be more remote, there will be more law enforcement agents in the areas, and there will be a greater effort to alert residents, forest users and groups such as hunters' organizations.

Of the animals released in 1998, one wolf is missing and presumed dead, and three other females were returned to captivity. Two males whose first mates were among the five killed were recaptured; one has been released a second time and the other's re-release is pending.