ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico State Game Commission has voted to support a federal proposal to recover an endangered wolf species that once roamed parts of New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico.
The vote came Thursday after commissioners received an update from the state Game and Fish Department on the recovery planning process for the Mexican gray wolf.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is under a court order to have a completed recovery plan by the end of November.
The plan is a long time coming as the original guidance for how to restore the species was adopted in 1982. The lack of a plan has spurred numerous legal challenges as well as skirmishes over states' rights under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Environmentalists say the proposal doesn't go far enough to boost the population or address concerns about genetic diversity.