LANDER - Of Wyoming's 359 gray wolves, about 30 to 35 currently live outside of the wolf trophy game zone, and they tend to live in small, non-reproducing packs, a federal wildlife official said.

There are currently six packs of wolves living in the Cowboy State's newly designated predator area, but most of those packs are small compared to their counterparts inside the trophy zone, and they tend have fewer pups, said Mike Jimenez, the federal wolf recovery coordinator for Wyoming.

"These are not big reproducing packs," he said. "And they tend to come and go every year because they're chronically bumping into livestock."

Even when they were protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, a large percentage of the wolves outside the new trophy zone were killed annually. In some years nearly all of them were destroyed, Jimenez said.

The dozens of wolves that have been removed by federal agents over the years in what is now the predator zone have tended to be replaced, annually, by new wolves venturing out. Those canines have also tended to kill livestock and, subsequently, be destroyed by federal officials, he said.

In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service killed 63 wolves in Wyoming in response to confirmed livestock depredations. About half of them were outside the trophy game zone, even though the animals there comprised less than 10 percent of Wyoming's total wolf population.

"Outside that trophy game zone is where we've done most of our control over the years," Jimenez said.

In the predator zone, there are currently four wolves living near Green River, three in the Wind River Mountains, three near Kemmerer, two near Big Piney, four near Daniel, three near Soda Lake, possibly four near Rock Springs, and four to six that regularly range back and forth across the line of the trophy area near Meeteetse.

There are also about five more wolves suspected outside the trophy game zone, but unconfirmed, Jimenez said.

Because there has been such frequent turnover in the wolves outside the trophy zone, the packs haven't had time to become established and, hence, they haven't reproduced much, Jimenez said.

"The packs outside that trophy game area always seem to get into chronic livestock problems," he said. "That's why we've been so active in removing them."