and another, wonder how much those boys are getting paid to shoot and who is paying
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Wolves attack woman's llamas again, this time killing one

The Associated Press
4/3/02 1:09 AM


FRENCHTOWN (AP) -- Federal officials on Tuesday verified a llama owned by Geri Ball of the Ninemile Valley was killed during the early morning by a wolf.

It was the second wolf attack at Ball's residence in recent weeks. The first time the llama survived but remains under care and is not doing well, she said.

Ball said she saw the wolf's green eyes in the darkness as she checked her llamas and it took a step toward her before she retreated to the house.

The wolf remained on the dead animal. "It didn't even run when my husband went back out there," she said. "We had to pound on metal to get it to move at all."

The couple's female llamas were in the barn, both because a wolf had attacked another llama 10 days earlier and because it is breeding season.

Three males were in the lower pasture. When the wolf approached, Catalyst ran across the field to investigate and was attacked.

"You can see where Catalyst went down to the cattails, then the wolf's tracks on a run through the mud and onto the ice, and then big gobs of hair in the field," Geri Ball said.

"It's so sad," she said. Catalyst used to pull a little cart, she said, and won ribbons at county fairs in Missoula, Kalispell and Medford, Ore. "He's been a pack llama, too."

Ball's was the fourth llama killed in the Ninemile Valley this year and the fifth attacked.

Last week, federal officials shot and killed two adult males from the Ninemile wolf pack, hoping they were the ones responsible for the attacks. On Tuesday, they made plans to kill two or more of the remaining pack members.

"It could be that we got one right and one wrong, or two wrong, or that other wolves were involved as well," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena.

"It's typical wolf stuff," Bangs said. "They avoid anything strange. But once they figure something out, once the behavior is ingrained, it's tough to get them out of there. We have had to kill whole packs before. I hate to see that happen, but part of the deal was we wouldn't let wolves prey on livestock."

Bangs said damage control officers will try to catch a wolf or wolves feeding on the llama carcass. "That's the way to do it, to be sure you've got the right animals," he said. "We'll probably end up shooting a couple more wolves."

"I don't really know what's going on with these llama kills," he said. "We've had wolves in the Ninemile for 12 years and we never had a problem with llamas until last year."

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