Gary Kramer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Gray wolf.

Wildlife advocates filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the federal recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf.

Advocates say the Trump administration's plan threatens the population of wolves in eastern Arizona and New Mexico by not establishing additional population centers. The plan calls for proposed recovery areas in Mexico, which advocates say does not have adequate habitats, and no additional areas in the United States.

Michael Robinson is a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case. He said the federal plan will put the endangered species into more peril.

“The government is doing an inadequate and really damaging, step backward when we should be recovering the Mexican wolf," Robinson said. "This is an opportunity, through litigation, to get the course right so that these animals will be with us for many generations to come.”

Robinson said there are about 113 Mexican gray wolves living in the United States, and advocates blame their high death rate to illegal killing and compromised genetics.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been modified to clarify advocates' concerns about the Trump administration's plan.