It took longer than usual, at least in part because of the government shutdown in December and January, but the population number for 2018 was finally released in early April . The news was good–at least 131 Mexican wolves are living in the wild in the U.S. That’s 17 more wolves than a year ago.

But, wolf deaths were also up–21 in 2018 versus 12 in 2017. One wolf that did not survive the year was M1676, pictured above. My story about M1676’s journey was published here by Earth Island.