It is a ritual that takes place every winter — federal and state wildlife managers use remote cameras, scat collection, radio telemetry devices and helicopters to count Mexican gray wolves that are roaming mountain ranges in parts of New Mexico and Arizona.
The predators that are captured during the annual survey are weighed and vaccinated, their blood is drawn and their radio collars are checked. It is all part of a decades-long effort to gauge the success of the work being done to return the endangered species to its historic range in the southwestern U.S. and in Mexico.
