DETERMINING THE IMPACT OF HUMAN INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE MEXICAN WOLF IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO

Abstract

The Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) is the smallest and southernmost subspecies of gray wolf in North America. Over the last 150 years, this subspecies was nearly driven to extinction through conflict with the livestock industry in its former range. Several studies have been conducted to determine suitable habitat for the reintroduction of the subspecies in Mexico and the United States. Because conflict with humans caused the wolf’s plight, in this Master’s project, I tested the impact that giving increased importance to human population density and road density has on suitability models within the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area (MWEPA) in Arizona and New Mexico. To complete this task, I found or calculated data for land cover type, population density, and road density in 1km pixels across the study area and scaled the values between -1 and 1. I then used elevation, slope, terrain roughness, and various temperature and precipitation variables in training a presence-only prediction model to account for climatic suitability, which I then scaled from -1 to 1. I then took a series of weighted averages, increasing the weight of population density and road density. I found that the increased weights of human population and road density increase the total quantity of highly suitable habitat at 43,493 km2, compared with an unweighted model 31,573 km2. This discrepancy probably arose from the large tracts of unpopulated land in the region. I found that the unweighted model most closely resembles previous research in Mexican wolf suitability in the region.