Will the wolf survive?

When the first pack of wolves in 60 years was released into Yellowstone Park last March, after being corralled by Fish and Wildlife Service experts in Canada, they refused to leave their pens. Smart move. For despite the abundance of deer and elk (the region hasn't seen large predators beyond 300 or so grizzly bears since the 40s), this is extremely hostile territory. The forces opposed to the arrival of Yellowstone's 14 new canine residents -- and 15 more recently brought back to central Idaho -- are small, but shrill and armed to the teeth: Within a month, one innocent female wolf was killed in Idaho, a bullet through her heart.

Yellowstone wolf restoration is only the most celebrated of a half-dozen wildlife reintroductions unfolding in the United States this year. Thanks to various state and federal authorities -- and usually with the active support of Native American nations -- red wolves have a pawhold in North Carolina and a vanished species of bighorn sheep is back in business in the southwest (and Mexican wolves may not be far behind). The gene pool of beleaguered Florida Everglades panthers will be bolstered, it is hoped, when they meet and mate with a pair of mountain lions relocated from Texas.

But Yellowstone has attracted the most attention. By 1940, nearly all of the wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming had been eradicated, victims of a frenzy of killing championed by ranchers, hunters and a government acting on behalf of sheep and cattle interests. Now a majority of people in those states, as well as elsewhere in the United States, want the wolves back. Simple, right? Wrong. Indeed, few federal environmental actions have been preceded by more comments, more discussion and more acrimony -- a furor totally out of proportion to the significance of the presence of the wolves themselves.

To summarize: There has never been a documented wolf attack on humans in the United States. The cost to ranchers, in terms of livestock killed, is virtually zero. Many more sheep die each year because they fall over, can't get up, and consequently starve, than could ever be killed by a hundred or even a thousand wolves.

And ranchers who lose livestock are voluntarily compensated by Defenders of Wildlife, which, as it turns out, is hardly a financial burden. Defenders had to pay out a whopping $12,000 in Montana over the last 10 years. Some biologists suspect that the sheep actually will be safer with the wolves around because wolves prey on coyotes.

So where's the beef? For some ranchers, business isn't so good, despite the millions in taxpayers' money spent on "pest eradication," grazing rights and other public subsidies. In the hands of the hysterical right-wing politicians that grow like nettles in the sagebrush states, this temporary economic dislocation represents an opportunity for demagoguery that rallies supporters, bolsters their political fortunes and, as an unfortunate side effect, leads to dead wolves, threatened and jailed environmentalists and, if you want to take the broad view, the bombing of public buildings in places like Oklahoma City.

Still, reason prevailed in the wolves' case, but it may not be enough. What this lot can't win in the courts, they may gain through other means. According to biologists, large predators need a big-enough population and, consequently, enough undivided terrain to remain genetically diverse if they are to thrive over the long term. Eviscerating the Endangered Species Act while turning over federal lands to mining and logging interests means, among other things, less breathing room and a less robust gene pool for grizzlies. It means more contact (and therefore more shootings) between wolves and livestock and wolves and humans. It means an impoverished environment for all Americans.

The restoration of large mammals to their former range in the continental United States is, to my mind, one of the most responsible, thoughtful and, in the best sense of the word, romantic notions this federal government has entertained in recent memory. That it is also the clear will of the people makes it infinitely more satisfying. The wolves are back in Yellowstone, to be sure, and that is a significant victory. But it may be only a temporary stay of extinction. Without an equally aggressive effort to save wilderness from roads, mines and clearcuts, these large mammals will make a brief reappearance, and then they will be gone again.