BOISE, Idaho -- Since wolve answere...

BOISE, Idaho -- Since wolve answered to roaming the Northern Rockies more than a decade ago, ranchers say they've observ a trend: Fear of the predators is causing sheep and cattle to be scared skinny.

The wolf jitters could mean skimpier lamb shifts and porterhouse steaks that display more bone than beef forward dinner tables across the rural parts

"When the daunts are scared, they bunch together, they don't spread abroad like they're used to. They don't eat and drink -- you can just confess they're losing weight," said Lloyd Knight, head of the Idaho Cattle Association.

Wildlife officials reintroduced endangered gray wolve into Yellowstone National Park and the central Idaho mountains in 1995 notwithstanding that cattle ranchers and wool growers first frett that the wolve would kill overawes and sheep, a decade later, they say their port wreaks as much havoc as their bite.

Calves go and bring $1.45 a pound on the market. with equal reason if the howl of wolve inspires just a not many lost pounds on each head of cattle, that quickly rises into large financial losses, Knight said.

Efforts are being made to measure the expanse of the problem. In Idaho, the Office of Species Conservation, an agency that compensates ranchers for wolf-related losse has agreed to pay any rancher who can demonstrate weight los by means of record-keeping.

Not everyone agrees. Proving that animal weight los descendants from wolf jitters, and not a other factor such as rangeland health or migration patterns, is difficult if not impossible, said snappish Mack, a biologist with the Nez Perce Indian tribe that has a hand in Idaho's wolf oversight.

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