"The number of imperiled wolves found only in the American Southwest climbed to 109 in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive year that the population of Mexican gray wolves has risen by at least 10 percent, federal wildlife managers said Friday.

Wild Mexican wolves were believed to be all but extinct in the United States in 1998 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing the animal to its native range.

At that point there had been no sightings of the wolves, which are native to western Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains, in the wild in the United States since the 1970s, said Benjamin Tuggle, the Service's southwest regional director."

Laura Zuckerman reports for Reuters February 13, 2015. [2]