[JASON HUSSEMAN] Come springtime once wolves start to den what we'll try to do is increase our monitoring so that we can try and get an idea of where they're denning.

[JOAN CARTAN-HANSEN] Biologist Jason Husseman is following the transmission from a radio collared wolf. This antenna on the wing of an airplane accepts the signal from a radio that's attached to a collar on the wolf's neck. The signal leads jason to this group loping on a ridge top. Can you see them?

1, 2, 3 wolves enjoying the spring sunshine.

[Do you want me to mark this?]

Jason will record their location and then try to find the den on the ground. The goal is to have radio collars on wolves in each pack in the state. How do you catch a wolf?

Biologist Michael Lucid has a young male wolf caught in a leg hold trap baited with dog food. Now he just needs to put the wolf to sleep so they can put the collar on.

[MICHAEL LUCID] And I'm going to distract the wolf from below and Steve is going to go up from above and inject the wolf with a drug.

Did you get him?

[JOAN CARTAN - HANSEN] Soon the wolf is asleep and the biologists fit him with a radio collar. They check his teeth. This helps the scientists to determine the age of the wolf. Then they put on ear tags so that when the radio stops working in a few years they'll still be able to identify him. Then Michael gives the wolf another shot to wake him up. Soon he'll join his pack mates and once more begin hunting other animals for food. So next time you see a wolf or other predator in the wild, don't think it's mean just because it eats other animals. Predators are just doing what nature intended.

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