By a slow slide of river deep in Washington’s wolf country, Robert Wielgus laughs at the tattoo on his arm of Four Claws, the grizzly that almost killed him.

“I would rather face charging grizzly bears trying to kill me than politicians and university administrators, because it is over quickly,” said Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab at Washington State University.

A Harley-riding, self-described adrenaline junkie at home in black motorcycle leathers with a Stetson and a .357 in the pickup, Wielgus, 60, is no tweed-jacket academic. For decades he has traveled North America wrangling bears, cougars and wolves to collar and study their behavior, including collaborations with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

Wielgus now finds himself crosswise with ranchers, lawmakers and WSU administrators — and their lobbyists. He’s lost grant funding for his summer research, has been forbidden from talking to media in his professional role and has been reviewed — and cleared — for scientific misconduct.

To understand why involves a look at state policy concerning a menagerie of animals: cougars, sheep, cattle and wolves. And one more animal: homo sapiens.

In Washington, it turns out, wolves and livestock are getting along better than the people who manage and study them.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national nonprofit specializing in government scientist whistleblower protection, in April filed a 12-page complaint against WSU officials, alleging the university punished and silenced Wielgus to placate ranchers and state legislators who objected to his research. WSU officials declined to comment for this story, citing possible litigation.

The conflict started back in 2002, when Wielgus began publishing a series of influential papers that called into question the practice of hunting cougars to reduce livestock losses. His research led to a reversal by Gov. Jay Inslee in October 2015 of Fish and Wildlife Commission policy that would have allowed more hunting.

That was not long after Wielgus published a peer-reviewed paper that just as provocatively questioned killing wolves to protect livestock — a policy used by the WDFW by now to take aim at four wolf packs, including two members of the Smackout Pack killed so far this month.

His wolf study made national news with its finding that culling the predators can lead to more livestock kills, not fewer, because it destabilizes pack dynamics.

Normally for a university, national press for one of its researchers would be a point of pride. But the buzz over the paper alarmed lobbyists for WSU, hearing threats from state lawmakers that it was putting money for a new medical school and other pet projects in jeopardy.

Those legislators in turn were responding to ranchers and local officials seeking more lethal action from the department against wolves that harm livestock.

“ … Highly ranked senators have said that the medical school and wolves are linked. If wolves continue to go poorly, there won’t be a new medical school,” Dan Coyne, lobbyist for WSU, wrote his colleague, Jim Jesernig, another WSU lobbyist, two days after the paper’s publication, state records show.

Jesernig, a well-connected former director of the state Department of Agriculture, and former member of the state House and Senate, agreed with Coyne, his partner at the Coyne, Jesernig lobbying firm. “That’s my assessment as well,” Jesernig wrote in an email copied to WSU Director of State Relations Chris Mulick. “ … We are making the med school not doable.”

Replied Mulick, “We’re looking a wee bit like Sonny on the causeway here,” referring to a mob hit on a character in the movie “The Godfather.” “We’re getting in our own way on the med school enough as it is.”

A magazine story prepared by a writer for the university’s magazine and news service in advance of the wolf paper was spiked, Wielgus said. Just like a news release subsequently written, but never issued, on new cougar research out of Wielgus’ lab.

“WTF? What happened?” wrote Jon Keehner, co-author on that paper, to Wielgus.

Wielgus answered that the university was afraid of angering Republicans in the Legislature. He explained grant funds for his wolf work were now being funneled to his lab through another researcher, to take his name off the grant.

“That’s how bad it got,” John Pierce, chief scientist for WDFW’s wildlife program, said in an interview. Losing so-called principal-investigator status on a grant is a wound in academia, Pierce explained, where the ability to bring in grant money is a coin of the realm. Winning grants attracts top graduate students and helps researchers compete for more grants.

In particular, Wielgus had provoked Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, a former Mercer Island resident turned cougar hunter, elected to the Legislature to represent the 7th District in Northeastern Washington.