ENDANGERED SPECIES -- Conservation groups are putting up a billboard in Eastern Oregon showing a dead wolf in a quest to send the person who shot and killed it to jail, according to an Associated Press story.

Starting today, drivers headed east on U.S. Highway 82 out of La Grande are seeing the billboard offering a $10,000 reward for information in the September shooting of a 2-year-old male wolf from the Wenaha pack in northeastern Oregon. 

The wolf was wearing a radio tracking collar and being monitored by wildlife biologists in Oregon and Washington who were trying to peg the movements of the pack that roamed the boarder of the two states.

Wally Sykes of Northeast Oregon Ecosystems says illegal killings of wildlife give rural communities a black eye and discourage tourists interested in wildlife.

Sykes says Northeastern Oregon Ecosystems and other conservation groups are paying for the $2,700 cost of the billboard.

The $10,000 reward has been raised by conservation groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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