YAKIMA -- Not in the 70 years since they were trapped and hunted to virtual extinction in Washington have gray wolves experienced such a momentous couple of days.

Even as state wildlife experts continue to fine-tune a management plan for the gray wolves they're convinced will soon begin arriving from dispersing populations in neighboring states, three events made wolf-related headlines late last week.

First came last Thursday's news that a road-killed canine found about 25 miles northwest of Spokane was, in fact, a gray wolf -- a revelation determined by DNA technology that had been unavailable even a year earlier.

The next day, a federal judge in Billings, Mont., granted a preliminary injunction restoring endangered-species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, including the eastern third of Washington. That prevented, at least for the time being, planned large-scale wolf hunts in the three states from which the propagators of any future Washington wolf population are likely to emigrate.

On that same Friday, a team of state and federal wildlife biologists -- following up on wolf sightings and reports of pack howling west of the Methow Valley -- captured and radio-collared what they believe to be a mating pair of wolves.

That hunch proved correct when the the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced late Wednesday afternoon that DNA tests confirmed the pair are, in fact, wild, gray wolves. The WDFW also said that the male was later photographed by remote camera in a location where six pups were also photographed -- marking the state's first documented resident wolf pack since the 1930s.

Oregon also made wolf news in the pre-dawn hours Friday, when that state's leading wolf expert heard the howling of a pack of what he believed to be at least two wolf adults and two pups -- which would make it that state's first pack in many decades.

And this was in the Umatilla National Forest, not far from the Washington state line -- in that part of the state not bordered by a river.

One possible new pack within the state, another just across the state line, a judicial ruling celebrated by wolf-protection advocates and a significant scientific advancement in wolf identification, all in one week.

"Sort of a harmonic convergence of wolf events," said Anthony Novack, a state wildlife biologist who spent two years studying wolves in Idaho.

"When it rains, it pours."

Judicial intervention

For those looking forward to having a self-sustaining gray wolf population in Washington, the downpour was all good news.

"Especially on the side of wolves," said John Blankenship, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife manager who now serves as executive director of Wolf Haven International, a wolf sanctuary in Tenino. "I've been hearing from people around the country, saying what a great week it was for wolves. They keep track of this stuff."

Not everyone, though, is enthralled with the idea of wolves in our midst.

Anti-wolf sentiment has run high -- particularly among livestock owners -- in Wyoming, where legislators designated the vast majority of the state outside of Yellowstone a wolf "shoot on sight" zone and more than 20 have been killed in the last four months.

In Idaho, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, in only his third month in office, became a lightning rod on the issue by saying he wanted to see hunters kill all but 100 of that state's wolves. And Idaho, Wyoming and Montana all had planned aggressive state-run wolf hunting seasons this year -- plans made moot by Friday's ruling.

"It's just one more demonstration of judicial intervention to block sound management of species," said Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association.

Cattle producers Field met at a national cattlemen's meeting last weekend in Denver were "extremely frustrated," he said. "They were just getting to the point where they can hunt and manage, to get the (wolf) numbers down to a manageable level, and to have the judge throw in an injunction, it's extremely frustrating. The goal is to have the wolf delisted so you can maximize management on both sides of it."

When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed wolves from the endangered species list in March, a dozen environmental groups sued to reverse the decision.

Suzanne Asha Stone of Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups in the suit, called Friday's ruling "welcome news." And although wolves were still listed as a state-protected species in Washington, Stone noted that the ruling's impact on this state could still be profound.

"(Washington's) best source for wolves is either coming across from Montana through the (Idaho) panhandle or from central Idaho into the southeast part of the state," Stone said.

"With that many wolves being killed, it really reduces the chance of wolves from those areas colonizing in Washington."

'So much excitement'

That Washington residents have been anticipating that colonization is evident in terms of both management -- with a draft for the state's management plan going out for peer review by the end of this month and expected to be finalized by early 2009 -- and simple anticipation.

Every time wolves make the news, the state's wolf-report hotline (888-584-9038) starts ringing, all too often with eyewitness tales of creatures that were almost certainly not wolves.

"Some people see a big German shepherd or a large coyote and think it's a wolf," said Dan Trochta, who monitors the hotline for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and interviews callers to assess the often dubious reliability of each report.

"Here's a good example," Trocha said. "Someone called up and said they were on the golf course, and that wolves came up to them and they thought the wolves were looking for a sandwich. And since they didn't have a sandwich, the wolves ran off. Well, no wild wolf is going to come up to a vehicle. I'm sure they were hybrids or some kind of dog that appeared to be a wolf.

"Some people might call and say they saw one in their back yard, and they live in town. Wolves aren't going to come into town. In some of these outlying towns, it's maybe more likely."

Sometimes, of course, it is a wolf. Since around 2002, a radio-collared wolf from Montana has made occasional forays into Washington; last September, a cattle was killed by what was believed to be a wolf in Stevens County, in the northeastern part of the state where there has been the occasional verifiable wolf sighting; and this year, after seeing wolf-like tracks on his property, a Methow Valley cattle rancher set up a remote camera that took shots of wolves -- very probably the same ones trapped and tagged by those agency biologists last Friday.

Washington Fish and Wildlife Department officials have been cautious about releasing many specifics about the Methow Valley pack until DNA tests at UCLA's Conservation Genetics Resource Center determine -- perhaps as early as next week -- it was indeed wolves.

"There's so much excitement around wolves, and so much concern, tht we have to be very scientific and careful," said WDFW wildlife diversity division manager Rocky Beach.

Wednesday's confirmation of the pack in western Okanogan County, wolf experts say, means that an alpha female, the likely alpha male and cubs have been confirmed in Washington for the first time in three-quarters of a century.

Momentous, indeed.