tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21161159.post-1163464507352877412006-11-13T18:32:00.000-06:002006-11-13T18:35:07.353-06:00Three of North America's most endangered wolves went on exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo on Thursday. Zookeepers hope the captive-bred female Mexican gray wolves will breed with the zoo's four male wolves already on exhibit on the Northern Trail.<br /><br />Mexican gray wolves were wiped out in the United States by the middle of the 20th century, but the subspecies found a sliver of hope in the late 1970s after a trapper working for the government captured five wolves in Mexico.<br /><br />The zoo has been part of a two-nation effort to breed those captive wolves and return their descendants to the wild; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Apple Valley zoo to help in 1994.<br /><br />One of the zoo's former wolves was released into the Blue Mountain Range in Arizona earlier this year.<br /><br />With only about 60 Mexican gray wolves left in the wild, international wolf experts rate recovery of this species as the highest priority of gray wolf recovery programs worldwide<br /><br /><li><a href="http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/15975834.htm">St. Paul Pioneer Press</a></li><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21161159-116346450735287741?l=wolfsaga.blogspot.com'/></div>wolf sagahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08438677788684162110noreply@blogger.com2