he following is based on information from The Wolf in the Southwest: The making of an Endangered Species by David E. Brown ( University of Arizona Press). Before 1918the proportion of female wolves in the general population of all southwestern wolves wasabout 50%. However, after 1918, southwestern cattle ranchers began a widespread effort to destroy wolves. In a recent sample of 34 wolves, there were only 10 females. One theoryis that male wolves tend to return sooner than females to their old territories where their predecessors were exterminated. Do these data indicate that the populationproportion of female wolvesis now less than 50% in the region?