GREEN RIVER - Defenders of Wildlife officials said the conservation group has completed 63 projects across the West since 1999 aimed at protecting threatened wolves and grizzly bears and reducing conflicts with livestock.

Seven of those projects were completed in western Wyoming at a cost of approximately $13,400, according to Defenders of Wildlife Northern Rockies Field Representative Minette Johnson.

Johnson said the 430,000-member Defenders has disbursed more than $235,000 since 1999 from The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund.

The fund was established by the Defenders to assist landowners with on-the-ground projects that reduce potential conflict between large predators and humans and their livestock.

She said the fund builds on the effective work of the group's "nationally-acclaimed compensation trusts," which pays ranchers for verified livestock losses to wolves or grizzly bears.

"Proactive conservation keeps carnivores and livestock apart and that keeps them both alive," Defenders President Rodger Schlickeisen said in a statement. "Our success at expanding the range of wolves and other predators in North America depends on reducing contact between these wild creatures and livestock."

Johnson said the proactive carnivore fund has allowed Defenders to perform cost-share and planning work with ranchers, sheep producers and others who have conflicts with wolves and grizzlies.

Projects include erecting fences around calving grounds, purchasing livestock guard dogs, buying bear-proof dumpsters and alarm systems, and providing financial incentives to relocate sheep from high conflict allotments.

"We're putting our money where our mouth is, by investing in tangible projects with measurable benefits for wolves, bears and people," Johnson said.

Some of the Wyoming projects completed over the past four years include:

* Purchasing $4,000 worth of bear-proof dumpsters for Lander.

* Spending $1,900 for Dubois to help move cattle to alternative pastures to avoid wolf depredations.

* Spending $400 on 16 locking mechanisms for 55 gallon barrels to bear-proof garbage cans for rural residents near Cody.

* Providing $2,500 in supplies to fence a rural schoolyard in Wapiti where seven grizzly bears have been removed since 2001.

* Buying $4,500 if extra hay in the Dubois area to keep horses and cow herds in alternative corrals away from wolf packs.