With human help, Mexican gray wolves are once again roaming in eastern Arizona.

Mexican gray wolves were once found in the woodland areas of most of the mountain ranges in the Sonoran Desert. But a hundred years ago, wolves were all but hunted to extinction, said Peter Siminski, a Desert Museum scientist.

"When wolves were eliminated in the early 1900s, there was a whole different mind-set," he said. "The intent wasn't to control them but to eliminate them. But times have changed, and now people see that wolves are part of the ecosystem."

Today, Mexican gray wolves roam forests in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico because of Siminski and other people.

Since 1983, he has been involved with a program to save the Mexican gray wolf and reintroduce it in the wild. The scientists found most of the wolves that remained in the wild. Then they started a captive breeding program to protect them and build up their population. From just seven wolves, the captive population grew to 215.

In 1998, a few wolves were reintroduced in the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila national forests. These are remote areas where the wolves would be as safe as possible from run-ins with people and cattle - ranchers still worry a great deal about this - and where there were plenty of elk and deer for the wolves to hunt.

The wolves were outfitted with radio collars so scientists can keep track of where they are. At last count, there were 33 with radio collars and about a dozen more without collars.

Some of the wolves have fit in very well in the wild, roaming many miles and bearing pups. Others have died naturally, been hit by cars or shot.

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