Mercy sought for park wolves

Gazette News Services

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Up to 300 wolves from the Yellowstone area could  be killed unless a court ruling is modified or congressional action stops the purge, Defenders of Wildlife warned Monday.

The national  conservation group led a leashed wolf into a hotel
conference room to  emphasize the plea for mercy.

The group, with 300,000 members nationwide,  has asked the American Farm Bureau Federation, which won the 1997 court  ruling against Yellowstone National Park wolf releases, to withdraw its  action. Unless that happens
or
unless Congress or appellate courts intervene,  the wolves and their
offspring would have to be recaptured and almost  certainly killed,
Defenders told reporters Monday.

"" said Bob Ferris,  Defenders
Ferris said nearly 200 of the wolves and their offspring  live in the Yellowstone area, including some in nearby areas of Wyoming,  Montana and Idaho. This spring, he said, the number may approach  300.

Farm Bureau spokesman Joe Fields, interviewed at the bureau's  national convention here, said it is unlikely the bureau would change its
opposition to reintroduction of predators like the wolves. He said bureau  delegates vote Wednesday or Thursday on the same anti-predator policy  approved last year."" Fields said.

In Casper, Wyo., U.S.  District Judge William Downes ruled in 1997 that Canadian wolves introduced  at Yellowstone could not have Endangered Species Act protections afforded  native wolves. Downes, acting on the Farm Bureau's lawsuit, found the  reintroduction illegal and ordered the wolves removed.

The U.S. Fish and  Wildlife Service and Defenders of Wildlife appealed Downes' order, and Downes  put his ruling on hold until the 10th Circuit acts. Defenders president  Rodger Schlickeisen said Monday he believes the Circuit Court will rule by  late spring or summer. A hearing for oral arguments by both sides is expected  soon.

The Yellowstone ruling is unrelated to Mexican gray wolf  reintroduction along the Arizona-New Mexico border.

On Monday, Kent  Weber, director of Mission Wolf at Westcliffe, Colo.,presented Rami, a  6-year-old gray wolf, to reporters. The wolf,
unperturbed by the attention,  jumped on a conference table and gave Ferris and others big wet  kisses.

Weber said Rami had met more than 150,000 people as a wolf  ambassador and
was too human-oriented to survive in the wild. He said she  proves the
"" myth of the wolf eating the  grandmother is false.
""
"It's a wholly European  myth. It has led to a lot of misconceptions about" he  said, noting American Indian wolf myths differ. Some
suggest man actually  began as a wolf, he said.

Wildlife officials released 41 wolves in  Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996. In 1995, 1996 and 1997, wolves killed four cows  and 65 sheep in the area, the Fish and Wildlife Service  said.

Defenders of Wildlife compensates ranchers who can prove harm  from predators.At the Farm Bureau convention, Horace Waybright, who  has a 2,000-cow
dairy
>farm near Gettysburg, Pa., criticized the Yellowstone  reintroduction."" Waybright  said. He said environmentalists broke the same law they so staunchly defend  by
introducing non-native Canadian wolves in Yellowstone.
"" added Evelyn Waybright, his  wife.

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