Wolf Killed in llama region 
Second put down by agents after sheep attack.

 

04/13/2002 MT--  
   
     FRENCHTOWN (AP) -- An adult wolf was killed by feder al agents earlier this week in an area of the Ninemile Valley where llamas have been attacked at least three times in recent weeks, officials said.
 Another wolf that migrat ed from Yellowstone National park was killed following investigation of a sheep attack north of Helena.
 The wolf in the Ninemile was shot from a helicopter Wednesday aSeconds it fed on an elk carcass, but officials were unsure if it was one of those involved in livestock attacks.
 `` They looked for a gray wolf and a big body size, and just hoped it was the right one,''  said Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery coordinator in Montana. `` I wish we were better prophets, but we're probably better historians.''
  Bangs ordered the wolf killed after a 6-year-old show llama was attacked at a ranch five miles up Ninemile Road. It was the fourth llama killed by wolves this spring in the area.
 Residents of the rural val ley felt `` a lot better''  after hearing the big male wolf was dead, said Geri Ball, who owned the dead llama. `` He   was pretty big, bigger than I thought wolves were. When you see them standing in your pasture, they are big.''
 Last month, federal agents killed a pair of adult wolves in the Ninemile after three llamas were killed and hoped the problem was solved.
 Then the Balls lost their llama to a lone gray wolf, and agents began staking out the carcass, hoping to shoot the animal when it returned to feed. The wolf did return,       but the marksmen missed their target.
 `` So today, we took a look at the pack,''  Bangs said.
  From the air, the agents spotted three black and four gray wolves -- the entire Ninemile pack -- feeding on   an elk kill. They picked a large gray wolf and shot, he said.
 `` We aren't so sure that they got the right one,''  Bangs said late Wednesday. `` If we get another gray one in the area, we'll shoot it too. We'll see if another one shows up.''
 Bangs said the unexpected development involving wolf predation occurred in the Wolf Creek area where a rancher reported an attack that killed 12 lambs, an ewe and probably inflicted fatal injuries on three other lambs.
 On Tuesday morning, the rancher saw a black wolf standing outside the sheep pen and called the wildlife agency. Officials confirmed the sheep were wolf kills, found a wolf bedded nearby and killed it.
  Bangs said the biggest sur prise was finding the dead wolf had a radio transmitter around its neck. It was identified as No. 203 -- a 2-year-old male wolf once part of the Chief Joseph pack of northwestern Yellowstone National Park.
 `` That's the first wolf we've had disperse all the way from the corner of Yellowstone National Park into essentially northwestern Montana,''  Bangs said.