The superintendent of Yellowstone National Park says a new study that maintains the return of wolves to the park will have little impact on other wildlife is the most thorough look yet at the proposal.

But U.S. Rep. Ron Marlenee, R-Mont., calls it "poppycock," adding that the 586-page report shipped to Capitol Hill on Monday says exactly what the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - proponents of the wolf recovery proposal - wanted it to say.U.S. Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, is expected this week to introduce legislation calling for wolves to be transplanted to Yellowstone as well as the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho.

The study, put together with comments from wolf experts worldwide and researchers from three universities, predicts little impact on wildlife or livestock near Yellowstone if wolves are returned.

However, it speculates that some wolves would head beyond Yellowstone's boundaries and have to be controlled by one means or another to protect livestock interests.

Although some critics of the recovery plan fear wolves would decimate Yellowstone's big game herds, the study said the available prey was at least five times greater than that which 100 wolves - the ideal recovery population - would be expected to reduce or even limit.

Bryce Dustman, press secretary for U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said he wasn't surprised by the report's claim that wolves would have little effect on wildlife or livestock.

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He said "it jumped out at him" that the Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service wrote a study saying the wolf wouldn't have a detrimental effect on livestock or big game.

Barbee acknowledged the Park Service supports the wolf's return but said the two agencies didn't manipulate the report's contents.

McClure's proposal is expected to call for three breeding pairs of wolves to be transplanted into the two core areas and protected within those areas.

The wolves would not, however, be protected outside those areas and would be managed under state law rather than the federal Endangered Species Act.

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