But eight of Yellowstone's wolf packs now spend most or all of their time beyond the park boundaries. The Sheep Mountain pack was reduced from 13 wolves to one by legal shootings and live removals after it repeatedly attacked livestock last year in Paradise Valley, Mont., north of the park. Since the 1980s, authorities have had to shoot 82 wolves and relocate 91 others in the northern Rockies for killing livestock. Three young Sheep Mountain males, trained in captivity to avoid livestock, are now back in the wild. The acid test might come this summer, when ranchers move cattle back to Paradise Valley pastures.
Reliable counts are elusive.
A tally as of 1998 found 21 illegal shootings of radio-collared wolves. Last July, the agency proposed reclassification. Wolf advocates say they worry that such moves are hasty. Defenders of Wildlife and the Turner Endangered Species Fund are pushing for wolf reintroductions in Colorado's southern Rockies .