Idaho offers Oregon more wolves

By Associated Press Published: Feb 13, 2012 at 3:44 PM PDT Last Updated: Feb 24, 2012 at 4:07 PM PDT
Idaho offers Oregon more wolves
From left, the alpha female (white-gray in color), a sub-adult wolf, alpha male (black) and a 2011 pup (black) from the Imnaha pack. Image captured on trail camera in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, in Wallowa County on July 9, 2011.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter has offered to send Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber 150 wolves, saying his own state has a few of the predators to spare.

Monday's offer came in a tongue-in-cheek letter where Otter sarcastically apologized to Kitzhaber after an Idaho hunter killed a wolf from an Oregon pack that strayed across Idaho's border to the east.

On Feb. 2, the Idaho hunter killed a brother of an Oregon wolf that became a celebrity by wandering hundreds of miles into Northern California seeking a mate.

Otter, no fan of the mid-1990s wolf reintroduction to central Idaho, offered Kitzhaber "my sincerest apologies."

Then, Otter said he'd have the Idaho Fish and Game Department round up another 150 wolves - or any number Kitzhaber needed or was willing to take.