The wolf pot continues to boil in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Now, another state has been added to the stew. In Oregon, environmentalists are protesting the piecemeal removal of wolves from the Endangered Species list, hunters want less competition from wolves, and ranchers complain that wolves are killing their livestock. In eastern Oregon, where there is only one known breeding wolf pack, a federal judge temporarily halted a kill order on two of the pack's members. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had hoped the targeted kill would "send a message to the pack to not kill livestock and change the pack's behavior."...

Meanwhile, I continue to marvel at our ability to ignore facts about wolves while jumping on one bandwagon or another. A case in point: It was coyotes and not wolves that killed 23 lambs on a Bitterroot Valley ranch last month. The news article appeared in only one local newspaper and drew no comment from readers. Coyotes seem to have no champions on the environmentalist side of the issue, and ranchers take coyote depredation in stride, viewing it simply as a cost of doing business.

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