SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Terra lies on a metal table, IV in her arm, oxygen mask over her nose.
A team of doctors work around her, drawing blood, giving her a full body workup to see if there's anything wrong with her. Because Terra is very rare.
Terra is a Mexican gray wolf.
"We're just doing an annual physical exam," said Dr. Anne Justice, a veterinarian for Arizona Game & Fish. "These wolves appear to be healthy but we just want to make sure."
"We just check to see what kind of shape they're in," she said, "their eyes, ears, nose, take a listen to the heart and lungs."
It's an annual physical for one of only a few hundred Mexican gray wolves in Arizona. The species almost went extinct decades ago. They're still listed as an endangered species, 25 years after being reintroduced to eastern Arizona and New Mexico.
"25 years ago, there was not a single wolf on the landscape," said Jim DeVos with Game & Fish.
But since the reintroduction program started, the number of wolves in the wild have grown to more than 200.
The program has been met with push back from farmers and ranchers who now occupy the same area as wolves, but DeVos said the program is marching on.
"I think there's far greater support from the livestock community than there was when we first started," he said.
And Terra represents the future of the wolf reintroduction program.
Unlike the other dozen or so wolves at Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center, where Terra lives, she and another male wolf are younger and in the breeding program.
The hope is that Terra and Cruz will breed and produce puppies that can then be "adopted out" into existing wolf families in the wild.
Terra and Cruz can never be released, officials said, because of their close contact with humans. But their puppies could be taught to live on their own.
That's why the vet inspections are important every year; to make sure they're healthy enough to reproduce.
Terra and Cruz passed their checkups. The hope now is that they pass on a new generation.