Montana wolf managers and an environmental group are at odds over the number of wolves killed from a pack that ranges in the northern part of Yellowstone National Park.

A Defenders of Wildlife e-mail last week claimed the wolf hunt in Montana's Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness had wiped out all of the adults in the Cottonwood pack. The report quickly spread on the Internet. The e-mail asks people to sign a petition to halt the hunt, which Defenders claims 80,000 people have signed, and requests donations to support the group's work.

The e-mail was signed by Rodger Schlickeisen, Defenders president, and was led with the subject line, "Urgent Action, Yellowstone Wolf Pack Killed." The e-mail read in part: "Yellowstone National Park's famous Cottonwood Pack has just been destroyed - all the adult wolves have been killed, and the surviving pups will likely die without the rest of their wolf family."

"That is not the case," Carolyn Sime, wolf coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said this week.

She said that after consulting with members of the Yellowstone Wolf Project and the Forest Service, the agencies agree that four members of the Cottonwood pack, including the breeding female and male, were killed. Four adults and two pups remain in the pack.

Determining where the other five wolves were from is based on the coloration, age and sex of the wolf, as well as where it was killed. From that information, Sime said, the agencies determined that one of the wolves killed in the Absaroka-Beartooth was from the Eagle Creek pack, whose range is outside Yellowstone.

It's a little less clear which packs the other four wolves came from. Two packs may roam the same region east of the Cottonwood pack, including the remnants of the Slough Creek pack and a mystery pack that moved into the region from the south. Or the two packs may have joined together.

"We don't know for sure," Sime said, partly because the packs are outside Yellowstone, where wolves are less closely monitored.

Schlickeisen said he directed his staff to send out a new e-mail to correct the information the group had originally received from people who watch the park packs.

"We still believe that all of the adults were killed, but since there is at least a little uncertainty, staff modified the language in e-mails that went out later," Schlickeisen said in an e-mail.

"I told our folks to be careful how they worded it," he said. "I told them to correct it."

The revised sentence said: "Already destroyed is Yellowstone National Park's famous Cottonwood pack. The pack's adults were all apparently gunned down - and now the surviving pups will likely starve to death without their family."

The message also seeks donations to fund a $150,000 ad on Times Square's electronic billboard to be run during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to raise public awareness of the issue.

Sime said what happens to the remaining members of the Cottonwood pack remains to be seen.

"We have lots of experience in other places where they make it," she said. "But what is unusual is the high wolf densities in the area."

More wolves means the possibility of interpack killings. But the high density also could result in a breeding-age male and female breaking off from their pack and moving into the area to set up house, Sime said.

"Breeding vacancies fill immediately," she said.

Contact Brett French at french@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1387.