Agents Net Sheep-Killing Wolf

Federal predator control agents on Sunday netted and tranquilized a young male wolf believed to have killed at least two sheep near here.

The agents followed the wolf in a helicopter and shot a net over it from the air.

Yellowstone National Park biologists put the animal in a chain-link pen in the Lamar Valley, where they may pair it with a female wolf in a new shipment of Canadian wolves expected to arrive in the park in the next few weeks.

Biologists think the wolf struck out in search of a mate or a territory of its own.

The dead sheep were part of a flock of 30 owned by Susan and Horus Brailsford that were grazing in the Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park. The sheep were the first the wolf would have encountered as it traveled north from the park.

Federal wildlife managers told the Brailsfords the Defenders of Wildlife will compensate them for their two lost sheep. The environmental group created a private fund to pay for any livestock lost to wolves.

Another wolf transplanted to the park has also been striking out on his own, but there have been no reports of lost livestock in his wake.