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Wolf Pup Introduced Into Foster Pack Gives Birth To Wild-Born Young

Biologists with the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team learned that a fostered wolf pup introduced to a pack two years ago has produced a pup.

I’s being called a “critical breakthrough” in Mexican wolf management, by the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

Genetic testing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of a male wolf revealed it was the offspring of a female that was fostered into a den in New Mexico in 2014.

According to a statement from Game and Fish, the agency supports this fostering technique that introduces very young pups in captivity and places them into a wild born litter of the same age.

KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.