ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The ABQ BioPark is getting ready to welcome wolves to Albuquerque’s Bosque. It’s part of the effort to expand recovery for the native endangered Mexican gray wolf population.
“Here at the Albuquerque BioPark Botanic Garden area, we’re building a new five-acre home that will be a great place for rehabilitation and breeding for Mexican gray wolves,” said Brandon Gibson, director of the BioPark.
Right now, crews are well underway, building across five acres along the Bosque trail, that will soon offer new space for breeding, rehab, and pre-release preps for the endangered Mexican gray wolf.
“Well, the BioPark is a true champion of conservation efforts. That’s one of our biggest goals, and so to have sites like this where we can take wolves that are injured in the wild, help rehab them and get them back in, as well as have a great site for the wolves to breed,” continued Gibson.
By the 1970s, the Mexican gray wolf was nearly hunted from existence across the southwest, but over the last several decades, conservation efforts, including the BioPark’s, have helped rebuild the population.
The new facility west of Old Town at the end of Mountain Road is expected to help the BioPark do more. “We’ve had a lot of wolf pups born, a lot of wolves rehabbed and reintroduced into the wild, but this facility is going to be five times as large. We’re going to be able to really help meet the demand as we help sustain this population of Mexican wolves in the wild,” emphasized Gibson.
They said the new facility in the secluded Bosque will help keep the animals from getting used to people, “As you can see, there’s a lot of very high fencing being built, so we want to make sure that the wolves are safe, the BioPark is safe, and the neighborhood stays safe as well,” shared Gibson.
The BioPark is putting in three layers of fencing across the five-acre habitat to keep wolves from getting out. They’ll also have around-the-clock monitoring from staff. The project should be done by August.