The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will award more than a quarter-million dollars to Arizona and New Mexico wildlife agencies. The grant is designed to develop nonlethal methods of protection of Mexican gray wolves and livestock. Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports.

The Wolf Livestock Demonstration Project will allow ranchers to monitor wolf movements with radio telemetry equipment. Electric fences will be used to keep the endangered gray wolves and other predators away from cattle, sheep and other herds. And animal carcasses will be used to divert wolves away from livestock. The grant also includes forty thousand dollars to compensate ranchers for confirmed livestock kills.

Officials with the Arizona Game and Fish Department say over the last two months there have been at least five cows killed by gray wolves in eastern Arizona and New Mexico.

Depredation has been an ongoing issue for ranchers since the beginning of the Mexican gray wolf recovery program.

At last count there were 110 roaming eastern Arizona and New Mexico.