DATELINE: ENTERPRISE RANCH, GALLATIN VALLEY, MONTANA

Our ranch lies in the northern reaches of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Calving has started, lambing will shortly follow, and soon we'll put the livestock out to range. And wolves have just arrived in Yellowstone Park.

In Montana, and in Idaho as well, few issues are more complex and emotional than those concerning wolves. For three generations people vilified, mythologized, and killed wolves. More recently, many environmentalists, myself included, have sought to restore this ancient predator to Yellowstone Park and wilderness areas. Returning the wolf replaces an important part of the ecological tapestry that humanity has unwoven. But, given people's divergent values, it is not surprising that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) recent reintroduction of the gray wolf has fostered great fears and extravagant hopes.

The controversy surrounding reintroduction is demonstrated by the 170,000 public comments received on the project's Environmental Impact Statement. Lawsuits opposing reintroduction have been filed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation and the American Farm Bureau Federation. They indicate significant rural resistance despite widespread public support.

But wolves are already returning to Montana. Seventy five arrived naturally, migrating from the Canadian Rockies. Like glaciers of the last ice age, they are slowly expanding southward. They are drawn by the dramatic increases in ungulate populations, primarily elk and deer, created by clear-cutting in public and private forests. The US Fish and Wildlife Service's decade-long effort to reintroduce 100 wolves into the Greater Yellowstone area and central Idaho (which contains the largest unroaded wilderness in the lower 48 states) accelerates a process well underway.

Wildlife biologists consider wolves one of the easiest species to manage. Established wolf packs stay in well defined and fiercely guarded territories. Thus they have low population densities and are easily located. Wolves are also afraid of new things and tend to avoid them. And if there is any doubt about who holds the upper hand in human-wolf coexistence, we might remember that wolves, once one of the most broadly distributed large mammals in North America, have been exterminated wherever they competed with man. A decade ago, only remnant populations existed in wilderness areas or at the sufferance of humanity.

With careful management, humans and wolves can coexist. Even with 75 wolves in northwestern Montana, only two cow calves were killed last year. None were killed in 1993. Like members of religious groups, wolves learn what is appropriate to eat. At Nine Mile Ranch near Missoula, wolves live with livestock and deer. The trick is to keep them from learning to eat livestock. At Nine Mile, radio collars allow researchers to monitor the animals' locations. If a wolf kills livestock its punishment is swift and harsh: It is shot with a tranquilizer gun and transported far away. The trauma usually dissuades the wolf from future livestock predation. Second offenses are punished by death, lest a problem animal teach others the joys of beefsteak and lamb chops.

The trials of Nine Mile Ranch hold another important lesson: Coexistence requires experience, intensive management, and ongoing effort. Reintroducing wolves is not a magical, effortless restoration of fairy tale ecosystems. Yes, wolves will restore some balance to an ecosystem burdened by destructive numbers of deer, elk, and buffalo. Without predators and Indian hunting, these animals are over browsing the land and eroding its beauty, diversity and health. Nevertheless, wolves bring difficulties of their own.

In spite of biologists' confidence in their ability to manage wolves and environmentalists' enthusiasm, ranchers and residents in the reintroduction areas have legitimate fears. Wolves pose both a practical and a symbolic threat. They do attack livestock and pets. They also represent a shift in control of Western lands orchestrated from Washington, DC. In short, people fear that the costs of this exercise in nostalgic ecotopianism are unfairly concentrated on their families, their stock, and their land values.

Nor are their fears groundless. On January 30, a few days after the release of the first 25 wolves, a dead wolf and a dead calf appeared. The wolf was shot after eating the calf. But this was no surprise, the Fish and Wildlife Service's environmental impact statement predicted wolves will kill several dozen cows and sheep each year, and several hundred elk and deer.

To address some of these concerns, Defenders of Wildlife, a national environmental group, has created a fund to compensate ranchers whose stock is killed by wolves. But these funds are neither limitless nor eternal. They do not cover lost pets, reduced opportunities for hunting, or the hurt associated with losing an animal to the brutal rending of a wolf pack. To minimize these effects, ranchers should be free to shoot problem wolves and otherwise deter them from developing a taste for cattle and sheep.

Restoring wolves is a worthy project that reflects well on our evolving sensitivity to nature. We are now wealthy and educated enough to afford such magnanimity. But it will be hard. Pretending these problems away is irresponsible. It is also poor environmental policy to ignore ecological realities.