The Mexican Gray Wolf – from Extinction to a New Life in Arizona and New Mexico

 

 

There was a sun bleached skull half buried in the sand about 30 yards ahead of me. It was the only white spot in the brown and gray landscape of the desert.

When I picked it up, I knew it was not a coyote. But it was of the canis family.

A wolf?

I have seen the rare gray Mexican wolf three times in the past ten years. They are shy and run at least from 200 yards away. Only one of these three stopped, looked back at me for a second and I could tell it was not a large coyote as the latter is a constant appearance in the evenings when I walk my dog. Coyotes in the Southwest are neighborhood scavengers, although I have seen quite a few walking the street with a wild rabbit in their mouths.

 

… When I got home I looked for information on the Mexican gray wolf. I was especially eager to find pictures of the skull to conduct my own comparative anatomy.

It ended up a less that straightforward inquiry. There are innumerable pictures of wolf skulls but very few of the Mexican gray wolf. The reason for this is the rarity of this wolf, given its near extinct status a few decades ago. About this later.

Here is a photo from the earthjustice blog (reference source shown at the end)

 For now the conundrum I had was that since the Mexican gray wolf is smaller than other wolves, the measurements I found about the skull and teeth did not match well with the skull I had found. Further, the tips of the canine teeth on this skull were cut, almost as filed, not helping me decide if it was a wolf’s skull or a domestic dog’s. Indeed, the domestic dog’s canine are slimmer and straight, while a wolf's canine are more massive (so are its molars) and slightly curved. Since I have a 106 lbs Akita that is, along with The Malamute, genetically the closest dog related to the wolf, I checked his teeth:

Here are photos of the skull without any clean-up:

 

    

Interestingly the best photos of a Mexican gray wolf skull were on Wikipedia       dating to perhaps a century ago. Here are the comparisons⁽¹⁾ to the photos above:

At first look I was convinced that “my” skull was a Mexican gray wolf’s. But the more I read I had doubts because most sources say that a wolf’s snout is longer than a dog’s and has no abrupt kink in front of the eyes. Yet, the Mexican gray wolf is smaller and has a shorter snout. Hmm.

But when I read about the difference between a dog’s teeth and those of a wolf, especially the canine, premolars and molars, I was convinced that it was not the skull of a dog.

So, hopefully not incorrectly, I concluded that it was a Mexican gray wolf’s skull.

 

About the Mexican gray wolf

Here is a description from the Defenders of Wildlife⁽²⁾ site:

 

“The Mexican gray wolf is a subspecies of the gray wolf, commonly referred to as “el lobo”.

Though they once numbered in the thousands, these wolves were wiped out in the U.S. by the mid-1970s, with just a handful existing in zoos. In 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, led by Jamie Rappaport Clark (now president of Defenders of Wildlife), released 11 Mexican gray wolves back into the wild in Arizona.

Although their numbers have grown slowly (there are about 200 of these wolves now in Arizona), they remain the most endangered subspecies of wolf in the world because of compromised genetics, human intolerance and reluctance to release more individuals and bonded pairs to the wild.”

 

A recent report by the Biological Diversity Organization ⁽³⁾ has a status report on these wolves:

Thirty-four wolves are known to have died in the wild in 2020, and five of those were shot dead by federal snipers in response to predation on cattle. Ten wolves were removed alive from the wild by federal trappers, though two ended up dying. In addition to the losses of those 44 wolves, several other radio-collared wolves disappeared during the year.

 

So, what did I do ?

Like all my work with animal skulls and hide, I wanted to give this unknown wolf a new identity. One that takes it from disintegration in the desert sand to where people can learn about the wolf and hopefully understand its beauty and place in nature.

First, I scraped the adhered tissue cleaned the bone surface. Then, as I do with antlers and skulls that are sun bleached, I covered it with coffee grounds. This does two things – the tannin give the white bones an ivory-like look, and, the coffee grounds seep into crack and crevices showing lines and shapes that were not specified well.

At this point I decided to paint a Mexican gray wolf’s profile on its frontal sinus perhaps recalling that destiny is often said to be written on the forehead…

The original outline of the profile, in pencil, looked like this:

And the painted version (oil and acrylic) brought the colours of the gray wolf to life:

 

With a strip of coyote pelt, I surrounded the skull with the gray, black and burnt amber colours:

 

It was now time to mount the skull on basswood and add touches of the Southwest – feathers, turquoise stones, a cone that opens up like a rose before falling, and replicates of arrowheads. Here is the side view of the finished product:

… Readers of my blogs have been very interactive from around the world. I look forward to any comments about this new work, especially if there are more specific additions I should make about the Mexican gray wolf.

 

June 14, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

 

 

1.      Elliot, Daniel Giraud, 1835-1915., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

2.       https://defenders.org/wildlife/mexican-gray-wolf

 

     https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-january/mexican-gray-wolf-recovery-left-to-politics-rather-than-science

3.       https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/mexican-gray-wolf-numbers-rose-to-186-in-2020-2021-03-12/