The Mexican gray wolf is one of the rarest wolves on Earth.

After being hunted to extinction in the wild by the 1970s, the entire recovery program began with just seven surviving wolves. Today, there are an estimated 319 wolves in the United States. Every single one matters.

Yet in the past year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has increasingly issued permits allowing ranchers to kill endangered wolves themselves, rather than limiting lethal control to trained federal wildlife officials. At least three such permits have been issued in the last nine months.

The most recent permit in Catron County, New Mexico allows permit holders broad discretion to kill a wolf seen on private land, and in some cases on public land if livestock attacks are witnessed. Conservation advocates warn that the permit does not clearly identify a specific problem animal.

This matters deeply.

One of the packs roaming the permitted area includes a wolf named Nora, a rare captive-bred individual whose genetics are especially valuable to a population still struggling with inbreeding. There is reason to believe she may be pregnant.

Lethal control has traditionally been considered a last resort, carried out under strict criteria and careful targeting. Expanding broad, discretionary kill permits to private citizens risks destabilizing packs and undermining decades of recovery work.

We call on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Secretary of the Interior to suspend broad lethal permits for Mexican gray wolves and require enforceable, science-based nonlethal conflict prevention measures before any wolf is authorized to be killed.

The Mexican gray wolf’s recovery is one of the great conservation efforts of our time. It must not be reversed by vague, expanding kill policies.

Sign this petition to protect Nora, her pack, and the future of this endangered species.