LANDER -- Wyoming is receiving a great deal of scorn from wolf advocates throughout the United States, and even overseas, but state officials said Wednesday that most of the non-local critics don't have their facts straight about the state's wolf management plan.

And even though some people in places as far afield as California and Vermont are encouraging travelers and consumers to boycott the Cowboy State -- because they disagree with its "shoot-on-sight" zone for wolves -- it appears that interest in traveling to Wyoming is actually on the rise, one official with the Wyoming tourism office said Wednesday.

Gov. Dave Freudenthal's office received more than 800 phone calls Tuesday and Wednesday from members and supporters of Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington, D.C.-based conservation organization. The group urged people via mailings and through its Web site to call and ask the governor to get rid of "the shoot-on-sight policy that is now in effect for nearly 90 percent of the state."

What Defenders of Wildlife calls "talking points," the governor's office calls a "script." And those answering the phones in the State Capitol heard the wording repeated about 85 times an hour Tuesday, and 25 times an hour Wednesday, according to Cara Eastwood, the governor's press secretary.

The governor's office had received almost 850 of these "scripted" calls as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, but only a handful came from Wyomingites, Eastwood said -- two on Tuesday and two or three Wednesday.

Eastwood spent a good portion of her morning helping answer the calls, she said, and she talked to people from Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Chicago and Minnesota, among other places. But the majority of the calls she answered came from California and New York.

"The governor will get a report on every single person who has called, but our constituents are in Wyoming, so he's most concerned about what local people have to say," Eastwood said. "Frankly, the views of people calling from New York or California may vary quite a bit from somebody calling from Dubois. And the concerns of people in this state weigh more heavily than the concerns of people calling from New York and California."

Suzanne Stone, the regional representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said members of her organization have been expressing concern and outrage about Wyoming's management plan since wolves were delisted. Making these phone calls is a way for them to "take direct action on their concerns," she said.

The Cowboy State offers some protection to wolves in the greater Yellowstone area, but the animals can be shot on sight in the rest of the state. Since delisting, 13 wolves have been confirmed killed in Wyoming, all of them in the predator management, or "shoot-on-sight" zone.

"I've had people calling in tears that they are so frustrated about how cruel and senseless these killings are in Wyoming, and they wanted to have something to do to express their concerns," Stone said. "The recent, senseless and indiscriminate wolf killing in Wyoming needs to be exposed. Running down wolves in snow machines and killing these wild animals once they're exhausted is not management, it's brutal."

Defenders of Wildlife is calling on Wyoming to create a more responsible wolf management plan, she said, because it is "the worst in the country."

"It's one of the most bizarre wildlife management plans that I've ever seen," Stone said.

Although Wyoming's plan was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year, and wolves were officially removed from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act March 28, a coalition of 12 conservation groups -- including Defenders of Wildlife -- filed suit to overturn that decision Monday.

Stone said her group agrees with the Fish and Wildlife Service's initial assessment of Wyoming's dual status plan for wolves: namely, that it was, and remains, a bad idea.

"The (Fish and Wildlife) Service changed its assessment under political pressure," Stone said. "And our members and supporters are going to continue to express their concerns until somebody listens."

Misunterstood?

The problem with the concerns being expressed, however, is that they're not grounded in facts, state officials said Wednesday.

"Probably a lot of people who are calling (the governor's office) don't have a full understanding of how Wyoming's management plan is intended to work," said Eric Keszler, spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "One of the talking points (assembled by the Defenders of Wildlife) refers to the shoot-on-sight zone in 90 percent of the state. What it doesn't mention is there are very few wolves in that part of state."

More than 90 percent of the state's estimated 360 wolves live in the trophy game zone, Keszler said, in the extreme northwest corner of the state, and those wolves largely cannot be shot without permits under Wyoming's plan.

Although most of the state is considered a "predator management area" for wolves, where they can, indeed, be shot on sight, that area contains only 20 to 30 wolves total, he said.

"I'm not sure that's clearly understood by a lot of the people that are calling in," Keszler said. "Wyoming's plan is going to maintain a recovered population of wolves in northwest Wyoming. We think the current plan is a wise way to manage wolves in this landscape."

As for the recent reports of Internet blogs and letters to the editor calling for a boycott of Wyoming because of its wolf plan, a state official indicated Wednesday that this movement is seeing little, if any, success so far.

"I don't want to underestimate it, but I also don't want to overestimate it," said Diane Shober, director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. "We have had e-mails and calls from people saying that they would not come to Wyoming, but whether or not anyone has actually canceled a trip because of this, we don't know."

What her office has observed, she said, is that interest in traveling to Wyoming appears to be trending upward at a good clip.

The Wyoming Office of Tourism keeps track of all of the out-of-state inquiries it receives for information on vacation planning for Wyoming, and those inquiries are up 49 percent this year compared to last year, Shober said.

"The interest in traveling here is very strong. Quite honestly, I'm more worried about the price of gas and what that might do to summer traveling," she said.

Environment reporter Chris Merrill can be reached at chris.merrill@trib.com or at (307) 267-6722.