"The hope was they would travel through the Big Hole. We're starting to suspect now that they're settling in," he said. "They've been in the Big Hole now for several weeks." Mack said that if the wolves are moved to the Panhandle, they'll likely be released somewhere in the upper Coeur d'Alene River drainage, near the Idaho-Montana state line. Biologists look for game-rich places as far as possible from towns.
Wolves almost always leave the immediate area after they've been released, said Joe Fontaine, assistant wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"You could look at a compass and just guess" what direction they'd go, he said.
While wolves sometimes are spotted in Idaho's northernmost counties, the closest known pack is along the St. Joe River east of St. Maries. There are no documented packs north of I-90 in the state.
In Montana, there are no wolf packs in extreme northwestern Montana, said Fontaine. Five wolves released last year near Libby left that area and have settled about 100 miles to the southeast, near Flathead Lake.
Wolf relocations are often controversial. That undoubtedly will be the case if the Montana pair are brought to North Idaho.
"I can tell you that the locals would oppose any plan to relocate wolves to Shoshone County," said John Cantamessa, commissioner in the county that includes most of the Coeur d'Alene River basin. "There could be a possibility of harm to children or people or pets or livestock, and we don't know what the benefit would be."
Jan Rose, an environmentalist in Bonners Ferry, said she would support any plan to bring back wolves to an area that already hosts cougars and grizzly bears.
"In this area, wolves are the missing animal to have a complete ecosystem," she said.
Gray wolves once lived in 44 states. By 1973, when they were added to the Endangered Species List, the U.S. population remained only in Alaska, Minnesota and Michigan.
In 1995, the government took the controversial step of reintroducing wolves to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. By then, a few wolves from Canada had started forming packs near Glacier National Park in Montana.
The reintroduced wolves have multiplied so rapidly that about 430 adults now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed changing their status from "endangered" to "threatened."
The wildlife service proposes dropping gray wolves from the Endangered Species List altogether once 10 breeding pairs are well established in three recovery areas:
• Greater Yellowstone, which includes about half of Montana, the northwestern corner of Wyoming and a slice of eastern Idaho.
• Central Idaho, which includes most of the state south of I-90, along with southwestern Montana.
• Northwestern Montana, which includes the northern half of the state, plus Idaho north of I-90.
While wolves are thriving in the other two recovery areas, they remain relatively scarce in northwestern Montana and North Idaho.
"The hope is that if those (Big Hole Valley) wolves are successful up in Idaho, they would contribute another breeding pair for that Northwest Montana recovery area," said Mack.
Biologists are familiar with one of the wolves, a black female designated B80 by biologists.
Wolf B80 and her brother, designated B81, were born into the Jureano Mountain Pack in fall 1999. Federal officials shot some adults in that pack after they were documented killing livestock at Salmon, Idaho.
The agents collared B80 and B81 as pups and moved them deeper into the woods. The following spring, the pair were captured and relocated again, when they returned to Salmon.
Wolf B80 and a new companion showed up in the Big Hole Valley in late spring, said Carter Niemeyer, federal coordinator of wolf recovery in Idaho. Authorities assume the companion is a male.
"From all the information we have, we don't think that they have bred yet," said Niemeyer.
Among the factors that could scuttle a relocation effort is the location of the wolves.
They've recently been hanging out in open country, where biologists are confident they could be darted from a helicopter. But darting would become much more difficult if the animals move into timber.
Dan Hansen can be reached at (509) 459-3938 or by e-mail at danh@spokesman.com.
