"BOISE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho -- Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills.

Such modest early results might seem surprising in a state that has tried for years to persuade the federal government to let it reduce the wolf population through hunting.

Idahoans, among the nation's most passionate hunters, are learning that the wolf's small numbers -- about 850 were counted in the state at the end of last year -- make it at once more vulnerable and more elusive."

William Yardley reports for the New York Times September 10, 2009. [2]