Feds say there are more Mexican wolves in Ariz., N. Mex.

The population of Mexican wolf in Arizona and New Mexico is rising, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

There were, at the end of 2010, 50 of the animals in the two states. That's up from 42 at the end of 2009.

Fourteen individuals are pups. At the end of 2009 there were seven wild pups in the region.

The total number of individual Mexican wolves reported by the annual survey is considered a minimum estimate of the population.

It is possible that other individuals that are not collared are roaming the region and were not counted during the fixed-wing aircraft- and helicopter-based census, which relies on telemetry data and actual sightings.

"We are moving forward with our recovery planning effort -- and our strategically planned releases this year -- and staying focused on our goal of having a genetically-viable and sustainable population of wild Mexican wolves in the Southwest," Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Region director Benjamin Tuggle said in a statement.

Despite the increase in the census of Mexican wolves since the end of 2009, the agency remains far short of the original recovery goal established when the 13 members of the species were re-introduced to the wild in 1998.

At that time the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would achieve a population of 100 individuals, including 18 breeding pairs, by now.

The latest count is also a decline from the population at the end of 2006. At that time there were at least 59 individuals in the region.

Federal wildlife managers also announced that a breeding pair of Mexican wolves has been released into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area that stretches across the Arizona-New Mexico border.

It is the first release of individuals into the wild since 2008.

Canis lupus baileyi, the smallest gray wolf subspecies on the continent, has been listed as an endangered species since 1976.

The animal was extirpated in the wild by the 1950s. Native to the Sonoran and Chihuahan deserts, it was re-introduced into Arizona in March 1998.

Mexican wolves are bred at 47 facilities around the country. About 340 individuals are known to be alive, both in captivity and in the wild.

A bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives would prevent the Mexican wolf, as well as other Gray wolves, from continuing to receive the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

The Fish and Wildlife Service terminated in 2009 a policy that had led to the removal from the wild of any Mexican wolf involved in the killing of three livestock animals.