Conservationists have achieved success in their three-year effort to re-introduce Mexican gray wolves to a habitat where it disappeared three decades ago. Mexican officials have reported that the first known litter of Mexican gray wolves has been born in the wild. According to Mexico's National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, a team of researchers spotted the wolf pups in the western Sierra Madre Mountains in June.

"This first litter represents an important step in the recovery program, because these will be individuals that have never had contact with human beings, as wolves bred in captivity inevitably do", said the commission in a statement.

The pups have been reported doing well in the wild. The efforts to re-introduce the species in Mexico started in 2011. The parents of this litter were released by officials in December in a bid to help them reproduce. In order to protect endangered species and their habitats, authorities are usually coy about revealing the exact location of breeding pairs in recovery programs.

The Mexican gray wolf almost reached extinction in the US Southwest for the same reasons that wiped out the species in Mexico. The factors in question are hunting, trapping and poisoning.

The Mexican gray wolf comes under the category of an endangered species in the United States and Mexico. The last five surviving gray wolves in the US were bred in captivity after they were captured between 1977 and 1980. It was in 1998 when the re-introduction of the first wolves into the wild in the Southwest actually happened, mainly in Arizona and New Mexico.

According to a US Fish and Wildlife Service survey, there are at least 83 of the endangered predators in Arizona and New Mexico. The population has increased for the fourth consecutive year.