Attack Wolf Sent To Refuge
	From the April, 2000

 
    A female Mexican gray wolf that attacked an Arizona rancher's dogs has been recaptured, wolf reintroduction officials said.
    Authorities said the alpha female, part of the Campbell Blue Pack, was caught Sunday and was being returned to captivity at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, south of Albuquerque.
    The wolf was found in the Sawmill Cabin area of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in far eastern Arizona.
    The attack occurred April 14 near Eagle Greek in Greenlee County, Ariz.
    The unidentified rancher was riding horseback with six dogs when he encountered the pack on a trail. The dogs and wolves began mixing it up, said Tom Bauer, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
    The armed rancher placed himself and his horse between the wolves and the dogs, but the female alpha wolf kept acting aggressively while the other wolves waited, Bauer said.
    The rancher, who had fired a warning shot into the air, managed to get the dogs and his horse into a barn, and the wolves moved off after about 20 minutes, he said.
    "Biologists believe the wolves were protecting their territory, and perhaps a kill, from the dogs, and were not focused on the rancher," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a prepared statement. "However, the behavior towards the horse with a mounted rider was not acceptable."
    The rancher and horse weren't injured, but one of the dogs suffered puncture wounds in the back and stomach.
    The pack included an alpha male and two female yearlings, part of the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Plan intended to re-establish wild packs of the endangered wolves whose ancestors were hunted, trapped and poisoned to the brink of extinction.
    Biologists said the yearlings have been returned to an acclimation pen in the forest pending an attempt to reunite them with the male.
    The male, one of the first 11 wolves released in the spring of 1998, has adapted well to the wild, feeding on native prey, and has not preyed on livestock, biologists said.
    However, he has been unlucky in mates. His first was shot, though the pair produced the first known wild-born pup in the program. He tried unsuccessfully to raise that pup alone. His second mate was killed by a mountain lion in October 1999. His two succeeding mates have had to be recaptured.

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