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February 6, 1996
Federal agents kill Yellowstone wolf with an appetite for sheepFederal agents Monday shot and killed a transplanted gray wolf that had strayed off Yellowstone National Park and was caught preying on sheep, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman said."Nobody feels worse than us after all the work we put into this," said Joe Fontaine of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The federal government is in the second year a controversial program to re-establish gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. Ranchers are challenging the program in federal court because they fear the wolves will attack and kill their livestock. The radio-collared black male wolf had killed at least two and possibly as many as four sheep on a small ranch about 30 miles north of Yellowstone Park. He had wandered from his pack, possibly attracted to the ranch in part by a large number of captive wolves--reportedly as many as 100--living nearby on a neighbor's property. Federal officials caught him last month and returned him to the center of the 2.2-million-acre park. But only weeks later he crossed the frozen landscape to return to the same herd of sheep. Under rules governing the reintroduction program, any wolf that attacks livestock will be moved once, then killed or sent to a zoo if it attacks again. Defenders of Wildlife paid the rancher for the lost sheep as part of a voluntary program designed to offset ranchers' concerns about the program. The shooting lowers to 20 the number of wolves roaming in and around the park. Additional wolves have been trapped in British Columbia and will soon be released into the Yellowstone reintroduction area and in a second reintroduction site in central Idaho. This story prepared by Reuters |
