Associated Press - October 7, 2009 11:24 AM ET

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Federal officials and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation have signed an agreement that establishes a trust fund to help ranchers deal with the impacts of endangered wolves that have been reintroduced in the Southwest.

The Mexican gray wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf, was exterminated in the wild by the 1930s. In 1998, the government began reintroducing wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico line in a 4 million acre-plus territory interspersed with forests, private land and towns.

Since then, ranchers have complained that wolves are killing their livestock and straining their livelihoods.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the Mexican Wolf Interdiction Trust Fund aims to reduce the wolves' impact on livestock while increasing tolerance for the species' recovery.

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