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Teenager wins a closer bond with wolves By PAUL FATTIG CAVE JUNCTION -- Somewhere out in the wilds of western Idaho is a wolf with Cedar Hursh's name on it. Chances are Cedar, 15, the son of Kim and Pam Hursh, will never see the wolf. But Cedar, who won a regional contest by naming the wolf Freedom, got to visit with real-life wild wolves last weekend at the Nez Perce tribe's Wolf Education and Research Center in Winchester, Idaho. The trip was his reward for winning the contest. "It was really neat how they came up and licked my hand through the fence," he said. "I thought it was real interesting, real educational. I'd never seen a wolf before." Last spring, Cedar entered the contest sponsored by the Northwest Native American Tribes and the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. The contest was organized to give Oregon students an opportunity to select a name for a wolf known as "B45" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The wolf had migrated to Oregon in February of last year, although her radio collar tracking device now indicates she is in western Idaho, according to Ric Bailey, executive director of the preservation council. In his essay, Cedar said the young female wolf should be called Freedom because the wolf deserves to be free. "I think wolves should be put back in Oregon because wolves were once here in Oregon and there should still be wolves here today," he wrote. "Wolves should be free and roam Oregon all they want to! And I think that the farmers and livestock owners should not shoot them because it's not fair sending a species into extinction." Cedar brought back written materials about wolves, including copies he gave to the local library and the Lorna Byrne Middle School, which he attends. "I want to learn more about wolves," the eighth-grader said, adding that he may pursue a career that involves working with wildlife. While at the research center, Levi Holt, a representative of the Nez Perce Tribe, spoke of his tribe's spiritual relationship with wolves and other animals. "Cedar had a connection with wolves from afar," Holt said. "That's why he won the wolf-naming contest. Now he has a deeper, direct connection with these beautiful and wild creatures." Accompanying Cedar on his trip were his mother and sister, Aiyana, 12. The family, vegetarians all, live on 10 acres near Cave Junction. "He has always had some interest in animals but he wasn't necessarily interested in wolves," his mother said, noting that changed with the contest. "It was the most amazing thing to see these wolves that close," she said. "I'd love to see a wolf in the wild. And I'd really like to see them in Oregon." That's the goal of the council, Bailey said. The last wild wolf in Oregon was believed to have been shot in 1963, he noted. Freedom is the migrating offspring of wolves brought into Idaho under the federal Endangered Species Act, he said. "We feel wolves had a critical position at the top of the food chain," he said. "We need to look at the mistake we made when we drove them to extinction in Oregon." But Bailey stressed that wolves should not be reintroduced into the state artificially, but allowed to migrate back from Idaho, northern Washington and Canada. "We want to allow them to live here through intensive monitoring," he said. "We should welcome them when they return and allow them to resettle in our state naturally." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA