The site reported that mom “F1143” gave birth to the cub on May 4 and that the pup, a male the staff at the center has dubbed “Trumpet,” passed his first medical exam with flying colors.
Here’s Trumpet at the ripe old age of eight days, taking in his surroundings. He's quiet in this video, but he got his name for the loud sounds he makes:
The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is among the most endangered mammals in North America. For a time in the 1980s, they went extinct in the wild, only to be reintroduced in the late 1990s, in a program run under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act.
Today, 54 facilities between Mexico and the United States (including the WCC) work together under a program called the Mexican Wolf Species Survival Plan, which tries to augment the wild population.
U.S. releases into the wild are governed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The agency currently introduces captive wolves through a “pup-fostering” approach, in which captive-born pups are placed with wild litters of similar age, allowing them to grow up in the wild.
Not every captive pup is brought into the wild, however. The world's remaining Mexican wolves are descended from just seven animals rescued from the brink of extinction. So a balance has to be struck between maintaining the genetic health of the species and the desire to regrow the wild population.
Trumpet won't be eligible for pup-fostering into the wild, according to the WCC, because his birth wasn't timed close enough with that of a similar wild litter.
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