Representatives of the Department of Conservation want to capture and possibly relocate two Mexican wolves that were recently spotted in a national forest near Flagstaff. Melissa Sevigny of KNAU reports on the controversial plan.

In the past, wolves traveling north of Interstate 40 have been trapped and relocated to the Experimental Population Area to the south. Jim DeVos of the Arizona Game and Fish Department says this is to reduce the risk of this unique subspecies interbreeding with northern wolves. But he adds that no decision has been made about this pair, one of which was radio-collared in July.

“The only decision that’s been made is we want to capture the second one,” DeVos says, “and then we’ll see what they do, where they go, and make the best decision to protect the wolves that involves those two wolves playing a role in recovery.”

Outside the Arizona Game and Fish Commission meeting on Friday, a dozen protesters waved signs and received encouraging honks demanding that the wolves be allowed to stay.

Claire Musser, executive director of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, says the wolves “are telling us what they need. They need to be out here, north of the arbitrary boundary, in their ideal habitat, which has been proven by wolves and science to be perfect habitat for the recovery of the Mexican gray wolf.”

In the 1990s, efforts to reintroduce these animals began, and today there are just over 250 wild wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.