TRENDS : A Reversal of Fortune: Predators Going From Targets to Icons : Some see the reintroduction of animals of prey as part of Americans’ change in values. But others say that ending the extermination is only momentary.

In 1639, European settler John Clarke peered into the dark forests of North America and observed, “The life of the wolf is the death of the lamb.”

For about 350 years afterward--just as for countless millennia preceding--this logic drove homesteaders to vanquish the wolf, the bear and other large predators. And in most places they did a pretty thorough job of it, too.

So it is one of the improbable curiosities of this Virtual Age that Americans now seem bent on reconciling themselves with these ancient rivals. Across the country, Americans are trying to find room to let big predators roam, offering them unique legal protection and, increasingly, reintroducing predators into old lairs where they were exterminated.

Perhaps this is only a momentary pause, and soon Americans will resume their quest to tame every square foot of the continent.

Or maybe, as some believe, a transformation of values is occurring in America.

“We are a culture of symbols,” says Renee Askins, executive director of the Wolf Fund in Moose, Wyo. “The wolf and the other predators have become symbols for a slow and difficult process: Man is confronting his ancient world view of dominion. It is a deep struggle, a way of facing the mistakes of our past. For most people, it is occurring at the subconscious or subliminal level. But it is occurring.

“What is at play is an old way of thinking in which we strived to control everything, and a new, reciprocal relationship with the natural world.”

Today, many of the causes that make the newspaper headlines are about money, power, lawlessness in the cities, the whiz-bang of the future. The return of predators is the contrary: Human altruism, the relinquishing of power, the return of nature’s laws to the outdoors and nostalgia for the timeless howl of the wolf.

This summer, in the most profound step yet, the Clinton Administration gave the go-ahead to reintroduce the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park. The federal government is also studying reintroduction of the grizzly bear to North Cascades National Park in Washington state and into the Bitterroot-Selway Mountains of Idaho. Two years ago, the red wolf was reintroduced into the Appalachian highlands. Mexican wolves are being reared for reintroduction into the Southwest.

Not since four zoo-reared gray wolves were released on Isle Royale in Lake Superior 40 years ago have there been such scenes in America.

Several states have acted to protect their existing predators. California voters outlawed sport hunting of mountain lions in 1990. In 1992, Colorado restricted bear hunts. Oregon voters face a ballot measure this November to restrict cougar and bear hunts. Public pressure stopped grizzly bear hunting in Montana in 1991 and Florida has now ended its bear hunts.

Why predators? Why, of all times, now?

Maybe because the frontiers are finally all but gone and America’s fabled self-belief in its frontier spirit is fading.

Two people who have pondered these questions are the husband and wife team of Pat Tucker and Bruce Weide of Missoula, Mont. She is a biologist and he is a filmmaker and story teller, and together they form a homespun organization called Wild Sentry.

They have custody of a full-grown, captive-bred wolf, Koani. A black-coated female, Koani is not a pet but an “ambassador wolf” that Tucker and Weide transport to schools and other audiences around the West. Their purpose is to demystify and destigmatize the wild wolf.

“Why wolves? In a word, wildness,” Weide says. “You can save whales and baby seals, and you’ve saved animals. But if you save wolves, you’ve saved wildness.

“People are tired of thinking they can control everything. They don’t want to live in the world but they want it to be there--we hear it time and again, it gives people satisfaction to know there’s something out there free from human control.”

Adds Tucker, “This must be imprinted deep in our brains because there are a lot of people who connect with the wild but have no experience with it.”

Others speak similarly of grizzly bears and mountain lions.

Doug Peacock, iconoclastic outdoorsman and champion of the grizzly, says there is self-interest involved. “What this is about, the real reason, is humility--these creatures keep us humble.”

A dozen or more organizations around the nation are actively engaged on behalf of big predators. Some, like the Great Bear Foundation in Missoula, offer cash payments to ranchers who lose livestock to grizzly bear attacks. Others, like Wolf Haven, in Tenino, Wash., provide shelter for captive animals and breeding stock.

Combined, their impact has amazed even those who are in the business of saving animals.

“The degree of change in public perception is more marked for predators than for any other species--going from a policy of extermination toward one of protection,” says Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States.

So far, this newfound fancy for predators is opposed primarily by ranchers. But as populations of bears and wolves and lions expand, old conflicts over territory surely will test public fortitude.

Mountain lion attacks in Western states are making news, including the mauling death in April of a 40-year-old woman in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. The lion subsequently was hunted and killed. Considerable social reflection occurred when public donations for the woman’s two children lagged behind contributions for the lion’s surviving cub.

And even some die-hard wilderness aficionados say there is reason to worry. Ira Spring of Seattle took his first backpacking trip in 1928 and has since written seminal hiking guides to the Pacific Northwest. And he has become an outspoken opponent of reintroducing the grizzly bear to the Cascade Mountains of northern Washington.

“To me it’s about access. We’re already overcrowding our wilderness with people. Grizzly bears don’t like people, they don’t even like each other. So how are they going to obtain people-free areas needed for grizzly bears? The only way I can think of is by drastically cutting down the number of people who have access to the mountains.”

Soon, Americans may have to decide if predators are worth real sacrifice. Or are they just another modern fad?

Beast of Prey

Americans spent three centuries vanquishing large predators. Now many are trying to find room to let the animals roam.

WOLVES

Status: About 2,000 individuals in the lower 48 states, both red and gray variety. Found mostly in Minnesota. Alaskan game officials estimate 5,000 to 7,000 gray wolves there.

Background: Before organized wolf extermination campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries, wolves lived in nearly every region of North America north of Mexico City. Experts say wolves could have easily numbered in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

GRIZZLY BEARS

Status: Approx. 1,000 in lower 48, concentrated in Montana and Yellowstone National Park. Called the brown bear in Alaska, there are an estimated 40,000.

Background: There were an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states at the start of the 19th Century. In California, once the Bear Flag Republic, the last known California grizzly was killed in 1922.

MOUNTAIN LION

Status: A solitary, elusive animal difficult to monitor. Not an endangered species, so there is no estimate of current U.S. population. Some experts say possibly 20,000 in western states. Perhaps 4,000 to 6,000 in California alone, according to state wildlife managers.

Background: From 1907 to 1963, state of California paid bounties on over 12,000 mountain lions carcasses.

Sources: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game