YELLOWSTONE'S WOLVES WEAR OUT WELCOME MAT.

Byline: James Brooke The New York Times

Loping through the snowy wilderness of the Continental Divide near here, a lone gray wolf is an advance scout for the latest battle in the West's "wolf wars."

One year ago, as wolves were returned to Yellowstone National Park for the first time since they were exterminated in the 1920s, biologists argued that they would largely stay within the 3,400-square-mile park, feasting on elk and bison.

But within their first year, each of the three packs roamed out of the park. Angering ranchers, they occasionally, nibbled on the hors d'oeuvres of civilization - a hunting dog here, two sheep there.

Although 17 new wolves arrived at Yellowstone in late January, ranchers show no signs of surrendering. By March, a federal judge in Wyoming is to rule on a suit by the American Farm Federation that asks that all the wolves in Yellowstone be shipped back to Canada.

"Sheep and cattle are McDonald's for wolves," argued Richard L. Krause, the lead lawyer for the group. "They don't stay in the park. The biologists have trouble locating them. It boils down to people thinking it would be nice if there were wolves in Yellowstone."

Indeed, wolves continue to be the most controversial species in the Rockies. While ranchers denounce them as predators hurting their livelihood, other Westerners see them as a source of tourists' dollars and a vital link in restoring the park's ecological balance.

Cooke City, Mont., just south of Red Lodge at the northeast entrance of Yellowstone, enjoyed an unexpected boom in wolf tourism last summer. Shops did a thriving business in stuffed toy wolves, books on wolves and T-shirts stamped with wolves.

"Visitors to Yellowstone now rate wolves as the No. 1 animal they want to see," reports Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington-based group.

This is no hype by a group with a wolf in its logo.

Rick McIntyre, a Yellowstone ranger, estimates that he led about 40,000 visitors last summer on "wolf walks." Armed with binoculars, visitors started lining roads as early as 4 a.m. to glimpse wolves in their main forage area, the Lamar Valley.

During May and June, the prime time for wolf viewing, the number of people entering the park through Cooke City jumped by 21 percent, compared to the same period in 1994. By contrast, Yellowstone's overall attendance increased only 2.6 percent in 1995.

Last summer, Western Republican politicians derided the wolf reintroduction program and managed to cut its budget by $200,000, or a third.

In a Democratic counterattack in August, President Clinton and his family visited a new-born litter of wolf pups in Yellowstone.

Environmental groups raised about $100,000 from thousands of wolf fans nationwide. This covered half of the cost of capturing and shipping the 38 new wolves to Yellowstone and a federal wilderness area in Idaho this winter.

In Utah, wolf supporters raised money through a festival, "Wolfstock '95."

In the field, enemies of wolf reintroduction did not always limit themselves to legal briefs.

In April, Chad McKittrick, a 42-year-old hunter, shot and killed a 122-pound male wolf near Red Lodge. On the Fourth of July, he rode a horse in a parade through this town near Yellowstone, sporting a black T-shirt that read "Northern Rockies Wolf Reduction Project."

McKittrick was convicted of killing a wolf under the Endangered Species Act, and awaits sentencing. Violation of the act carries a jail term and a fine of up to $100,000.