Why did the Mexican wolf become endangered?

By the turn of the 20th century, reduction of natural prey like deer and elk caused many wolves to begin attacking domestic livestock, which led to intensive efforts by government agencies and individuals to eradicate the native gray wolf subspecies, the Mogollon wolf (also known as the Mogollon mountain wolf), from New Mexico and Arizona. Hunters also hunted down the wolf because it killed deer. Trappers and private trappers have also helped in the eradication of the Mogollon wolf. By the 1950s, the Mogollon wolf had been eliminated from the wild in New Mexico and Arizona.

In 1976, the Mexican wolf, a gray wolf subspecies and an occasional hunter in the former Mogollon wolf denning territory, was declared an endangered subspecies and has remained so ever since. Because of the overlapping range, and because some biologists felt the Mogollon wolf was a "middle subspecies" between the Mexican wolf and the grey wolves farther north, the Mexican wolf, the Mogollon wolf and another subspecies, the Texas wolf, were all lumped together in one taxonomic group.

In 1998 the Mexican wolf reintroduction program released Mexican wolves into the former denning territory of the Mogollon wolf. Today, an estimated 340 Mexican Wolves survive in 49 facilities at the United States and Mexico.