TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) _ After a five-year review, the program to reintroduce the endangered Mexican gray wolf in the Blue Range encompassing eastern Arizona and western New Mexico will continue, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday.

In making its determination, the agency accepted a lengthy list of recommendations, with some modifications, of an oversight committee that conducted the review.

``I think this is a huge step. I'm very pleased,'' said John Morgart, Fish and Wildlife's wolf recovery program manager.

In 1998, Fish and Wildlife began releasing wolves into the wild on the Arizona-New Mexico border to re-establish the species in part of its historic range.

Morgart said recovery team members estimate that the current population is about 35 to 50 wolves but could be around 45 to 60 after several animals were removed, shot or otherwise perished. That included six pups killed by a surrogate wolf parent.

The estimate excludes an unknown number of pups wild-born this year, said Morgart, adding that there are some seven breeding pairs in the recovery area.

Many area ranchers have been vocal opponents of the reintroduction effort because of livestock depredation. Neither the current program nor the recommendations provide for any government subsidy or reimbursement for wolf-killed livestock.

``The Blue Range recovery project in and of itself is likely not going to be sufficient for recovery,'' Morgart said. ``It's a component for recovery. What full recovery eventually will look like is still on the table.''

The existing recovery area encompasses about 6,000 square miles.

The agency has designated the Mexican gray wolves as a ``nonessential, experimental population,'' allowing more flexibility in managing them. including removal by capture or killing if an animal has been involved in three livestock deaths.

Neither opponents nor proponents of the recovery program are happy.

``It appears that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can care less if they're damaging our children,'' said Jess Carey, owner of a gun shop in Reserve, N.M., and the wolf action investigator in Catron County.

``I personally feel like the wolves are here and they're going to stay. I believe that, and whether we have protection or not,'' people will react to protect their families, even if they have to go to jail, Carey added.

He estimated that young children in possibly 15 families in the Blue Range have been harmed psychologically after witnessing wolves attacking their pets.

Carey said Morgart told him last week that officials were addressing how to protect ranchers' children from wolves but the head of the oversight committee gave no promises of any action.

The recommendations would authorize states and tribes to issue permits to use non-lethal means to harass wolves engaging in ``nuisance behavior or livestock depredation'' and lethal means if they attacked domestic dogs.

But Carey said a permit could be issued only after a first incident.

``It almost takes the wolf biting the child before you can act. And if you act before the wolf bites the child, you're going to jail,'' Carey said.

Michael Robinson of the environmental organization Center for Biological Diversity also was displeased with the recommendations.

``In several crucial respects, they're going to increase mortality of Mexican gray wolves,'' he said. ``And in approving them, Fish and Wildlife is pledging not to address the causes of mortality that are causing this population to go down.''

Robinson said the biggest problem the wolf population faces is scavenging on cattle and horse carcasses, thus learning to prey on livestock and horses.

Fish and Wildlife's northern Rockies wolf recovery program specifies that wolves drawn into an area because of dead livestock will not be trapped, but it makes no such allowance for Mexican gray wolves, according to Robinson.

The recommendations would give Arizona and New Mexico authority ``to cap the population at 125 animals, which will relegate them to endangered status always,'' Robinson said.