At that time, there was no protection for wildlife, and far too many deer and elk were killed for food or for sale of their meat and hides. Many of the wolves' prey animals were killed, and wolves and other predators were trapped, poisoned, and shot because they sometimes ate the people's livestock. Although we should always treat all wild animals with caution and respect because they ARE wild, healthy wild wolves are afraid of people and are almost never aggressive towards them. By the 1950s, there were very few wolves left in the wild in the United States. Mexican wolves are on the Endangered Species List, which means that they are in danger of extinction, or vanishing from our world forever.
Today there are no known Mexican wolves still living in the wild.
About 175 of these wolves live in 33 different zoos in the United States and Mexico. The governments of both countries are breeding Mexican wolves in the hopes that they can someday be returned to the wild. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has begun a program to restore about 100 Mexican wolves to parts of Arizona and New Mexico.