The saga of the Mexican Grey Wolf is a story of how politics interferes in the efforts of independent scientists to recover an endangered species. With my guest David Parsons, who formerly led the USFWS efforts to reintroduce the Mexican Grey Wolf to the American Southwest from 1990-99, we learn how difficult it is to reintroduce a species and save it from extinction when powerful vested interests who control legislators hijack the policy process down to even the scientific modeling results for how many wolves are needed to recover the species. As we see our political agenda rolling back more and more of the protections previously implemented, the politically entrenched and vested interests in government is not reflective of the general public. As David explains, we have a huge political fight ahead to save this iconic species, and by extrapolating across this concept, these challenges affect security for the environment that provides for the health of all living beings.