When Susan Dicks, DVM, goes to work in New Mexico, she spends her days giving vaccinations, examining neonatal puppies, and studying fecal samples. It seems like a regular day for a veterinarian, only her patients are not pets—they are Mexican wolves.
Dr. Dicks, who has a small animal background and was in clinical practice for 10 years, is employed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, which is working to bring the wolves back to a healthy population level in the Southwest, where they originated…