Relocated wolf kills two sheep in Montana

This is the first instance of a reintroduced wolf attacking domestic livestock.

The 2-year-old gray wolf had wandered from his pack, possibly attracted to the small sheep ranch because a large number of captive wolves--reportedly as many as 100--live nearby on a neighbor's property.

The owners of the wolves have kept them since the 1920s, allowing them to bypass the 1973 Endangered Species Act that would normally make this illegal, said Ed Bangs, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduction program.

Government biologists captured the wolf and placed it in a pen in Yellowstone. They are still unsure where in the park it will be re-released in order to prevent it from killing other domestic livestock. "But if it does it again, it will be killed," said Bangs.

According to the reintroduction program's guidelines, any wolf who attacks domestic animals more than once is considered a problem wolf and is killed. The private conservation group Defenders of Wildlife has established a fund to reimburse ranchers for livestock killed by the wolves, and will pay the owners of the ranch for the loss of their two sheep.

The wolf was one of 29 gray wolves transplanted last January from Canada to parts of Idaho and Wyoming by the Fish and Wildlife Service in an attempt to re-establish the endangered species in the northern Rockies region.

Biologists are in Canada this week collecting a second group of wolves for release into the two states later this month. Fifteen of them are expected to be released into Yellowstone.

This story prepared by the Outside Online staff