KETCHUM, Idaho - Wolf advocates will be overnighting with central Idaho sheep this summer as part of a new project meant to reduce depredations.

The $25,000 program calls for field assistants from Defenders of Wildlife to spend nights in the field, along with herders and Great Pyrenees guard dogs.

The field assistants, armed with tracking gear to help locate radio-collared wolves, will also deploy loud air horns or .22 caliber starter pistols to scare off wolves that venture too close to wandering sheep bands.

The program has already seen one big change: A band of 2,500 sheep were relocated after the meadow where they were originally slotted to graze turned out to be close to the rendezvous point where the all-black Phantom Hill pack and its latest litter of pups.