The same numbers hold true for cattle, where wolves are responsible for 0.6% of predator kills.
As far as the threat to humans, a 2002 study by Alaska wildlife officials found that there have been only a handful of documented wolf attacks on humans in North America since the 1800s. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police suspect wolves in a fatal attack on a man in Saskatchewan last month. If true, it would be the first such recorded death in 100 years, according to the Alaska study.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday December 28, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 70 words Type of Material: Correction
Gray wolves -- An article in Tuesday's Section A about tensions over the federal effort to reintroduce wolves into parts of the West wrongly attributed to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal a statement that Wyoming considered the Endangered Species Act no longer in force and "now considers the wolf as a federal dog." The statement, which was circulated on the Internet, was purportedly from Freudenthal but was in fact a hoax.
Fears about wolves aren't borne out by the facts, insists Suzanne Stone, of the group Defenders of Wildlife.
"It's almost impossible to discuss it rationally," Stone said. "It doesn't have anything to do with logic or reason, it's so steeped in myth. And this mythical wolf really doesn't exist."
Stone runs the Defenders' compensation program, which has paid more than a half-million dollars in the region since 1987, she said. In many cases, the compensation has not softened the attitudes of ranchers who have lost livestock.
Sheep and cattle rancher Mick Carlson said he has lost about 300 animals on his ranch on the Salmon River to wolves in the last two years and has been compensated for most of them by Defenders. Yet he said he would not hesitate to use lethal methods to stop one.
"I live in a small town of about 400 people," said Carlson, 70. "I guess you could talk to any man in town, and he'd shoot a wolf on sight."
Wolf biologists say that 90% of documented wolf kills are at the hands of humans.
Some of it is done legally, when, for example, a wolf pack habitually attacks livestock. But most wolf killing is not legal, and federal agents who investigate rarely find enough evidence to bring charges.
"These are, without a doubt, the most difficult cases I've ever worked on. It's been extremely frustrating at times," said Craig Tabor, the Fish and Wildlife Service's lead law enforcement agent in Idaho. He and his agents put together the Sundles case -- the rare instance, the agents said, where evidence was available.
"The typical scenario is that we have a dead animal in a very remote area that, by that time we find out about it has already been there for weeks or months," Tabor said. "If there are witnesses, generally speaking, they tend to be unwilling" to cooperate.
