By WILLIAM YARDLEY


BOISE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho - Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades, which began September 1, yielded only three reported legal kills.

Idahoans, among America’s most passionate hunters, are learning that the wolf’s small numbers - about 850 were counted in the state at the end of last year - make it at once more vulnerable and more elusive.

“It’s clear it’s not going to be easy,” said Jon Rachael, the wildlife manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Once shot on sight for preying on sheep and cattle, gray wolves were largely eradicated from the Northern Rockies by the 1930s. They were listed as an endangered species in 1974. In 1995, they were reintroduced into the region by federal wildlife officials.

The program was such a success that the wolf population in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming - about 1,650 at the end of 2008 - is now five times the goal set for reintroduction. Ranchers and hunters complain once more that the animals are killing livestock as well as big game that hunters track, particularly elk.

After years of studies and lawsuits, wolves were removed from federal protection in Idaho and Montana in May.

J. D. Hagedorn and his father, Marv, a Republican state representative, participated in the first day of hunting on September 1. The elder Mr. Hagedorn is among many people who say the long, bitter fight over the wolf has really been a fight over the West and how to live in it. He said earlier settlers “came and ravaged everything,” from forests to fish, even wolves. Yet in an effort to restore balance, he said, the federal government took too much control away from states like Idaho. “The federal government has come in and added this predator and thrown it all out of whack,” he said.

J. D. Hagedorn, a sophomore at Boise State University, said he was more torn than his father and grandfather on some political and environmental issues. He said he had taken some classes on environmental topics. “I understand the importance of a predator in an ecosystem,” he said, cradling a rifle at dusk.

But wolves must be managed, he said, “and I’m not going to lie, it’s a great hunt.”