The future management of the government’s Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program is the focus of a hearing on Wednesday in Albuquerque. 
 
Environmentalists, landowners and others are expected to pack the session, to comment on two proposals that will determine how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proceeds on its effort to return the wolf to the Southwestern U.S.

One calls for listing the Mexican gray wolf as an endangered subspecies and delisting gray wolves elsewhere. The other proposal would revise a rule that classifies the Mexican wolves as an experimental population.

Wolf supporters blame wildlife managers for failing to do enough to help the wolves repopulate parts of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Ranchers oppose any plans to expand the reintroduction program or increase the size of the area in which the wolves can be released.