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Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Cal Groen sent letters offering up Idaho wolves to any state that wanted to manage them. So far, at least 20 states have rejected Idaho's pitch to trap and export some of its wolves. nobody wants them... In May, the federal government removed more than 1,300 wolves in Montana and Idaho from the endangered species list. Environmentalists have sued to restore federal oversight.

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

Wolves killed 11 sheep and injured five more Thursday south of Two Dot, USDA Wildlife Services officials confirmed Friday. "It's quite gruesome," said Tonya Martin, the sheep rancher whose stock was raided. A wolf killed five sheep and injured another five last March on the Martin ranch on Big Elk Creek. Efforts to capture the wolf were unsuccessful. The Martins told officials that four wolves were seen in the area. An adjacent landowner also reported that their cattle had been run through a fence Thursday... Wolves in Montana are federally protected...

A Bitterroot Valley, Mont., rancher who lost several calves to wolves spent the night in his car to guard his herd, and shot a wolf as it moved among his cattle. "There were all these black shapes, cows running everywhere," said Ed Cummings, who was awakened at 4:30 a.m. on June 5 by his dog's growling. "And right in the middle of them, just sort of trotting around, is this wolf." Cummings lost his shoe while trying to get out of the compact car, keep an eye on the wolf and grab the rifle he'd borrowed. "I didn't make a...

Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs... The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana...although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana... Wolves are still listed under the Endangered Species Act. Delisting was set for late March, but lawsuits are expected to delay that. As for conflicts with ranchers, the FWP reported an increase in the number of confirmed cattle deaths due to wolves, from 32 to 75, and an increase in the number of sheep deaths, from four to...

A sled dog tour operator in the Interior village of Bettles said wolves have killed and eaten two of his sled dogs in the past two weeks, continuing what has been a statewide trend this winter. “They drug them right out of their collars,” Max Hanst said by phone Tuesday from the village 180 miles north of Fairbanks. “The most recent one was three nights ago. I lost another one six days before that.” Three days prior to the first attack, Hanst said he shot and killed an old, emaciated wolf trying to dig its way into a puppy pen....

Day of tobogganing almost ends in tragedy as wolves stalk children. In the dusky northern light three days before Christmas, two Fort Nelson families came dangerously close to two hungry wolves, until the family dog, Shadow, narrowly averted disaster. The wolves appeared quietly at about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 22, as darkness was creeping in on the winter wonderland 100 kilometres east of Fort Nelson, where the families were tobogganing. About 30 metres away, a sleighful of three children -- one aged four and the others aged three -- were being happily towed along the base of a hill by...

SWANTON ­­ Tim Kougias has a mystery on his hands, and he knows it may remain unsolved, but it has added a touch of excitement to his life nonetheless. On Tuesday, the Swanton resident and his wife, Maria, had just returned from a lengthy trip to Greece, Tim's homeland. As they settled back into their Country Club Estates home, Tim set his video camera on the kitchen counter. "What is that?" Maria asked suddenly, pointing to the edge of their backyard, which straddles a wooded area. Roaming along that border was a dog, or so Tim thought, until he noticed...

DES MOINES (DTN) -- When gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park during the mid-1990s, it started a heated debate between wildlife enthusiasts and ranchers that has never cooled down. The ongoing clash of opinions recently hit the airwaves. Residents in Bozeman, Mont., are the first in the nation to hear anti-wolf radio messages paid for by the Montana Stockgrowers Association. The messages, which will air for the next 60 days, were created to call urban attention to the economic impacts on ranchers caused by wolves, said Steve Pilcher, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. Bozeman was...

OROFINO, Idaho -- There are Idahoans who like hearing the howl of wolves in their state. There are Idahoans who are ambivalent about federal efforts to restore the predator. Those folks were scarce Saturday, when about 300 people gathered at Orofino High School for a fund-raiser aimed at making Idaho wolf-free. The money raised is for lobbying the state Legislature to sue federal agencies over wolf reintroductions that have led to a booming population. "Save State's Rights, Kill A Wolf!" read a bumper sticker available at the event. Of course, to kill a wolf without good cause is a federal...

BOISE - If the saying is true, that only the strong survive, some fear the Canadian Grey Wolf, will be the only one left standing in Idaho's backcountry. "We're headed for the worst wildlife disaster in the history of this state," says Ron Gillette. He's been an outfitter near Stanley for 34 years. Since wolves were reintroduced in Idaho in the mid 90's, Gillette believes the environment has changed. "Once you put these Canadian Grey Wolves into an Eco-system, they kill everything. They kill the prey first, then they kill the other predators, and when they get down to wolves...

Wolf Kill Has Ranchers Demanding Re-introduced Wolves Removed By Jon Hanian Burgdorf, ID - The aftermath of a wolf pack attack that occurred last month north of McCall near Burgdorf has left 55 sheep dead and more than dozen maimed. The attacked, which has been confirmed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, has also galvanized groups opposed to the federal government's efforts to re-establish grey wolves in the state. Ron Gillett heads up the Anti Wolf Coalition of Central Idaho. Gillett says a band of 100 sheep were attacked on September 18th by that wolf pack. "Where they...

GAMONAL, Spain (Reuters) - On a hill outside Gamonal in central Spain, a cross marks the spot where a young boy was believed to be eaten by wolves about 90 years ago. Folklore or not, hatred of the wolf and its status as vermin caused Spain's Iberian wolf population to plunge to about 400 by the late 1960s. But a 1970 hunting law, human exodus from the countryside and greater ecological awareness among Spaniards have helped boost the wolf population today to between 1,500 and 2,500 -- the biggest in Western Europe. "There were no signs of the wolf here...

Rancher accuses federal wolf agent of trespassing By the Associated Press with staff reports Saturday, February 28, 2004 CODY -- A western Wyoming ranch is accusing the federal government of trespassing earlier this month to collar four wolves. Larsen Ranch Co. owners are considering asking Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric to file criminal trespass charges against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the alleged violation. "It's aggravating and upsetting," said Randy Kruger, a ranch stockholder and employee. "It's causing me loss of sleep. It's a matter of terrorism." He made his comments to the Cody Enterprise. Wolf biologist Mike...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Bush administration violated the Endangered Species Act when it relaxed protections on many of the nation's gray wolves. The decision by U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland rescinds a rule change that allowed ranchers to shoot wolves on sight if they were attacking livestock, said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. In April 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service divided the wolves' range into three areas and reclassified the Eastern and Western populations as threatened instead of endangered. The Eastern segment...

Next week, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton are expected to sign an agreement that would place management of an estimated 500 grey wolves into state, rather than federal, hands. The agreement would give ranchers permission to eliminate wolves that harass livestock. It also would empower state wildlife managers to pick off wolf packs that make a dent in the state's deer and elk populations. The wolf's revival in Idaho started a decade ago when officials released 35 wolves into central Idaho. Their numbers have grown steadily since then. Federal rules have carefully prescribed when ranchers...

Four gray wolves released near Meeteetse on Feb. 14 may have been illegally captured on his land. The rancher, Frank Robbins, was among more than 40 people attending a March 2 Hot Springs County Commission meeting to lodge objections to the way federal agencies have managed wolves in the area. The group ..."to tell the feds that monitoring wolves on private property would be considered trespass," ... "We were caught unawares," ... the commissioners "are concerned about what (wolves) could do...We don't see any of the plus side." whether any laws may have been violated in the case of low-flying...

'They were not afraid of us,' woman says. Neither the three women nor their dogs heard the pack of wolves creeping up behind them as they jogged on Artillery Road in the frigid morning air. One minute it was peaceful. Then she glanced back and saw the pack of about eight wolves spanning the road, only a few feet behind. A melee ensued, accompanied by screaming, snarling, blood and pepper spray. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through."... The increasingly emboldened Elmendorf wolf pack is blamed for killing one dog and wounding another in Eagle River this...

Wolves roaming the outskirts of Fairbanks are making pet owners nervous... What the story calls a “pack of bold, hungry” animals made lunch of two dogs recently - one in North Pole and one about 20 miles out Chena Hot Springs Road. A number of callers to the Department of Fish and Game have reported spotting the pack. Cathie Harms, a spokesperson with the state Department of Fish and Game. “Everybody is used to seeing moose on the road, but not everybody is used to seeing wolves in their yard.”