Just found out that the budget bill passed in March ordered the USFWS to determine whether the Mexican Gray Wolf is a taxonomically valid subspecies or not. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was hired by the agency to conduct the taxonomic study, which began last month and continues until March 2019. You can learn more about the study and keep updated on it with the provided link.

Now a scientific review of Mexican Gray Wolf taxonomy is not a bad thing - it is actually a very good thing, since science works by constantly reviewing and revising its theories as new data comes in. But there are two things about the Congressional order that seem a little suspicious:

1. The order limits this taxonomic study to the two most endangered wolves in North America: the Mexican Gray Wolf and the Red Wolf (Canis rufus); it does not include all North American wolves, despite the fact that Northern Gray Wolf subspecies are in great need of taxonomic review.
2. The status of the Mexican Gray Wolf as being genetically distinct from other Gray Wolves (regardless of whether it is called a subspecies or an ecotype) is more or less scientifically unquestioned, and the anti-wolf belief that the Mexican Gray Wolf is a wolf-dog hybrid has been disproven with genetic research.

So what do you think? Is this order to study Mexican Gray Wolf taxonomy the result of genuine scientific interest, or is Congress just making another political attempt to delist the Mexican Gray Wolf? In any case, we must make sure that Congress does not intervene with the research and/or try to use/twist its results to strip the Mexican Gray Wolf of its ESA protections!