Coiner's sod-roofed log cabin lies just over a ridge from where Mack's crew tracked a wolf family recently, so the biologist and an assistant drive over to give the rancher an update. An Endangered Species. I don't know anybody who is in favor of it. Under a program run by the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, ranchers are paid market prices for cattle lost to wolves. But there wasn't enough evidence for federal officials to determine if wolves killed Coiner's cow, so the rancher didn't receive any payment.
Ranchers spend a lot of cold winter nights trying to keep their cows alive.
That concern for livestock spurred the Farm Bureau's 1994 lawsuit against the reintroduction program. Last December government's, a federal district court judge finally issued a decision in the case. The judge, William Downes, said the program was illegal because it reduced safeguards for any native wolves that might be in Yellowstone or Idaho, and he ordered the introduced wolves removed. The National Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups have appealed the decision. The judge has stayed action on removing the wolves until the appeals are resolved.