Test confirms first gray wolf near Grand Canyon in 75 years

Genetic test results released Friday confirm the first sighting of a gray wolf near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 75 years.

According to the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, DNA samples show the animal first spotted in October is a female wolf originating from the northern Rocky Mountains, at least 450 miles from where it is now.

The wolf is wearing an inoperative radio collar. It has been seen and photographed repeatedly on Arizona’s Kaibab Plateau at the edge of Grand Canyon National Park, about 250 miles east of Las Vegas.

It marks the first confirmed wolf encounter in that area since 1939, according to the U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service.

Conservationists are heralding Friday’s news as proof that recovering wolf populations will disperse into suitable habitat on their own and deserve to be protected as they do so.

The Obama administration is expected to decide by year’s end whether to strip the gray wolf of federal protections it was granted in 1973.

Wolves already have been taken off the endangered species list in the northern Rockies and upper Midwest, and their numbers there have been driven downward by state-authorized hunting, trapping and snaring, along with federal aerial gunning, the Center for Biological Diversity contends.

“This wolf’s epic journey through at least three Western states fits with what scientific studies have shown, namely that wolves could once again roam widely and that the Grand Canyon is one of the best places left for them,” said Michael Robinson with the Tucson, Ariz.-based center. “It’s heartening this animal has been confirmed as a wolf, but I am very worried that if wolves are taken off the endangered species list she will be killed and wolf howls from the North Rim’s pine forest will never again echo in the Grand Canyon.”

The group recently issued a report identifying almost 360,000 square miles of potential gray wolf habitat in the West and Northeast, including roughly 6,000 square miles in scattered patches of Nevada.

“There’s so much more room for wolves in the West if only we extend them a bit more tolerance,” Robinson said in a written statement.

“The Grand Canyon wolf is a prime example of what wolves can do if only we let them.”

At least one Nevada wildlife official has questioned the center’s findings, arguing that the state might see a single wandering wolf from time to time but cannot support an entire, genetically viable pack because there just isn’t enough deer and elk to eat.

Officials in Arizona eventually hope to capture the wolf near the Grand Canyon so they can examine it and give it a new, brightly colored radio collar.

After that, the animal will be released once more to find its own way in the world.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.