The timber wolf is an icon of the changing West. It also offers a litmus test of the ability to think clearly. Emotional baggage is chained to the species like a # 4 Victor, the trapper's tool of choice.

Ranchers I've known for 30 years have come untrained, loudly sputtering at me for defending the wolf's place in the West. And I've brought environmentalists to tears when explaining that problem wolves should be, and will be, killed.

Here is the key to understanding. The wolf is programmed to kill large mammals but we want them to be selective. By all means spare cows, horses, and sheep.

There's a place for the wolf. In Yellowstone Park elk and bison numbers are exploding. With numbers far exceeding carrying capacity, the ecology of Yellowstone is being dramatically simplified and degraded. The wolf can help restore nature's dynamic balance where politics precludes responsible management by federal agencies.

The wolf has been successfully reintroduced but its return must be actively managed--and not from afar. Here's why.

The wolf is, at base, a cautious, indeed cowardly killing machine. That is precisely why they are valuable additions to ecosystems like Yellowstone that are threatened by over browsing. But a wolf in the wild has a hard life. Most die before reaching five years of age.

Handling big animals is inherently dangerous. An injured cowboy or ferrier can usually make it to the ER. Killing large hoofed animals with one's teeth, is much more risky. And a wolf with teeth kicked out, ribs broken, or shoulder dislocated can't check into the vet clinic. Hence, the selective sieve of time has produced wolves that attack the young, the weak, the sick, and those bogged down in snow.

Brave wolves, those which attacked healthy animals on firm terrain, were less likely to survive and prosper then those more cautious. We know that today's wolf descended from animals which avoided strong prey and sought out weakness. Evolution produced an optimal mix of cowardice and ferociousness.

How does the above square with the claims by wolf advocates that there's no record wolves killing humans in the United States? Quite well indeed. The historical record indicates that wolf attacks on humans go down as weapons improve.

Barry Lopez's respected book, Of Wolves and Men includes a conversation with an old Eskimo. The wolf used to sometimes kill Eskimo. "Now Nunamiut (an Eskimo) can reach out and kill Amaguk (the wolf) from a distance with a rifle. Now Amaguk leaves Nunamiut alone." In 1972 Erwin A. Bauer, a defender of wolves, observed; "Wolves once had an unnerving habit of closing in around a man, under the right circumstances, often getting within a few yards or even a few feet. And if these animals have killed few or no humans on this continent (since 1920), they have scared many half to death".

In a book dealing with guard dogs, Mitchell Jones notes that "as man has become more formidable, the wolf has responded by becoming more reluctant to attack him". The old wolf is gone, exterminated. As Jones says, "The modern wolf is an animal with a radically different attitude toward man."

So what happens when we "save the wolf"? Montana ranchers are finding out. They need a confirmed livestock kill before they can act. In the Big Hole country, rancher Wayne Turner used a radio monitor to track two transplanted wolves, B7 and B11. In one week he trailed them and found two carcasses of moose calves, a cow moose, a cow elk and a yearling heifer, the last a confirmed wolf kill by wildlife officials. The wolves were darted with tranquilizers and relocated to an enclosure in Yellowstone Park. Last week in the nearby Deer Lodge Valley, four wolves killed or maimed seven Angus cows. The wolves were shot by federal agents.

This is not a happy ending but rather a preview. Some conservation groups, specifically Defenders of Wildlife , understand the costs which necessarily follow reintroduction. Defenders established a program to compensate stockmen for wolf kills and thereby reduce opposition to recovery efforts.

Icons have different meanings to different people. Newcomers to the West and urbanites insulated from rural Western traditions see the wolves as displaced natives who must be returned to the ecosystem. Conversely, many native Westerners view wolf reintroduction as the imposition of an alien culture. To them, the wolf causes a whimsical waste of resources that threatens ranching and the traditional culture.

Wolves have evolved as careful killers. That's why we want them returned to wild ecosystems. However, we want them to be discriminating in their preadation. This requires that we permit stockmen to shoot wolves that kill livestock. As wolf numbers increase, so will this problem. It is irresponsible to pretend otherwise.