Wolves-N-Wildlife: Tri tries to do away with "Little Red Riding Hood" themes.

Tatonka, Geronimo, Sarah and Dutchess look and act like pet dogs. They're friendly, playful and mischievous. They love to chase and romp and pounce on each other and give wet kisses to strangers who stick their fingers through their fenced en-closure.

But the litter mates are wolves, once the most persecuted wild animals in the Unit ed States.

Wolves were hunted, poisoned and trapped to near extinction by 1930, but they are making a comeback with the support of people like Tamra Lester, Ron Merkord and Bobby Smith.

The three live on a 120-acre ranch near Fillmore with nine gray wolves, a 650-pound endangered Siberian tiger named Raja and an American black bear named Buddah.

Merkord, Lester and Smith incorporated their group, Wolves-N-Wildlife, earlier this year and in August won a permit from the county Planning Commission to continue operating the ranch.

They now devote most of their time to educating school- children about wolves and conservation.

"We think wolves are one of the most misunderstood animals. They have this bad reputation as a vicious animal hunting you down in the woods," Merkord said.

He, Smith and Lester live on the property Merkord bought four years ago. Jody Sanicola and Kris Lampe work part time there as tiger handlers.

Merkord, Lester and Smith began handling wild and exotic creatures in the early 1990s at a ranch in Canyon Country, where animals were trained for television and film work.

On a recent morning at the ranch, the four wolves, born in April 1998, engaged in a game of tag around their pen. The pack stopped running long enough for one wolf to bite some bark from a tree, another to dig a hole in the dirt and the other two to lick the hands of their handlers and visitors. Smith was sitting inside the pen watching, and the wolves regarded him as a friend.

"They are beyond spoiled," Lester said with a laugh as she called out for the wolves to stop biting the tree.

The Wolves-N-Wildlife founders began raising the four in captivity when they were 10 days old. The pups were taken from their mother before their eyes opened. The first thing they saw when they opened their tiny eyes were their human caretakers. They were bottle-fed every three hours and trained to accept the humans as their pack mates. But they are wild animals and not household pets.

"We actually had the dogs raise go them, to teach them manners, Lester said The wolves' parents, Princess - and Rambo, live in another pen and won't have anything to do with the four. The three other wolves live in an other pen.

The five adults are too shy to be taken to schools. They stay on the ranch. The wolves and other animals were given to the Wolves-N-Wildlife founders by former owners who, for various reasons, could
Not use them for movies or other uses.

The group now uses them to educate young children that wolves all important part of nature's ecosystem. This year, the group began taking Geronimo and Tatonka- the two most social - to schools in Ventura County, Los Angeles, Riverside. They also open the ranch for field trips, Scout events and birthday parties.

"We're trying to get rid of the Little Red Riding Hood' theme," Lester said of the wolves. Public opinion is shifting, and tolerance for wolves is on the rise.  Their numbers are increasing in several northern states as the government reintroduces them into places like Yellowstone National Park. But they remain an endangered species in 48 states.

"You've got to reach the kids now. They are the future leaders," Smith said.

Their school presentations include a slide show about wolves and their complex behaviors in the wild, and displays of crude traps used to catch wolves in the 1800s.

Most children have never seen a wolf and are fascinated, Lester said. "When it comes to animals and the environment, kids really absorb it," she said.

Smith wants the kids to think about the future of wild animals. He leaves them with this thought at the presentations: "When all of our animals are gone, when all of our wilderness is gone, who's next?"