WALDPORT, Ore. (AP) — You can hear the wolves long before you see them. Their unmistakable drawn-out howls float lightly on the breeze before you reach the 10-foot-high chain-link fence that marks the beginning of the animals' domain. Their home, found on a gravel road tucked into the Coast range east of Waldport, is known as the White Wolf Sanctuary.

Once you reach the center of the sanctuary, they are there too: 10 regal snow-white Arctic wolves, carefully watching with yellow eyes as they pace the perimeter of their huge wire-enclosed territories, their tongues the color of Pink Pearl erasers — at the ready to greet visitors who befriend them.

Arctic wolves are a subspecies of the gray wolf that originates in the cold climate above the Arctic Circle. These Arctic wolves all have been rescued from domestic circumstances that ranged from owners' ill health to neglect to outright abuse. They have been brought to the sanctuary to live the rest of their lives in near-wild comfort.

It's the brainchild-cum-obsession of Lois Tulleners, who left behind previous careers as singer and band member, manufacturer of exercise equipment, karate school entrepreneur and private eye to answer the call of the semi-wild.

"When her father heard she had bought this place, he said, 'What else is that girl going to do?'" Tulleners' mother, Rose White, recalls.

Nothing, because, "This is my life," is Tulleners' quick answer. "I have a better relationship with these animals than most people — it's my responsibility to give them the most natural lives they can have."

She first encountered the wolf personality when a long-ago boyfriend acquired two wolf-dog hybrids, then left them with her when the couple broke up. She began studying the pure species, Canis lupus, and "the more I learned about wolves, the more I became obsessed with their plight," Tulleners says. "Wolves are one of the most persecuted animals in the world."

It shouldn't be so, she argues. "Wolves are the top of the food chain, and when the wolf population is healthy, all other animal and plant populations are healthy."

She knows farmers and ranchers take a different view, but she's talking ecosystems, not economics.

The wolves "are natural controllers of herbivores," keeping their numbers down so they don't destroy too much vegetation, which leads to erosion and further destruction of habitat, Tulleners says. "There's a scientific basis for encouraging a well-balanced wolf population."

Of course, for her personally, maintaining her private wolf population is as much emotional as scientific.

"When I first started, Arctic wolves were so rare and beautiful, I just fell in love with them," Tulleners says. Her devotion drove her to create the sanctuary just for the white wolves, which means she has had to turn down other types of wolves and animals in need of a home.

As a nonprofit sanctuary, she has to meet federal regulations that maintain her certification with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"If you're just going to keep a wolf as a pet, you are licensed through the state Department of Agriculture, but it's federal when you have a sanctuary," she says. "I have to meet all the requirements for fencing, food preparation, water quality, health and medication. There's a whole book on what you have to do to meet the federal regulations. And they do send the inspectors out."

That's never been a problem for White Wolf Sanctuary, she says proudly. "One year, they wrote us up as the best facility they've seen."

Of her 60 acres of land surrounded by national forest, 47 are dedicated to fenced-in wolf habitat, Tulleners says.

The fences are from 10 feet to 14 feet tall, depending on the lay of the land, and they also extend three feet down into the ground.

"I've never had a wolf try to dig out, but I don't think it would even be possible," she says.

The fences are set up to form five different enclosures "in kind of a circle" around the property. The runs vary in size, up to 23 acres, and two wolves reside in each space. The enclosures are connected with a series of lanes and gates that allow wolves to be escorted from one area to another without coming in direct contact with each other.

"We do that so they can change habitats occasionally and not get bored," Tulleners says. "I look at it as 'enrichment,' and they love it."

Each habitat has its own house, pond and picnic table — "They love to get up on picnic tables; I don't know why," Tulleners says — as well as plenty of vegetation and open space for hiding and romping.

Most of the shelters are as big as backyard sheds, but the one known as the Wolf Church is larger. The building used to be a hunters' cabin before Tulleners bought the property, and it gained its holy name from a single stained-glass window.

Tulleners' house is at the center of the property, where all the enclosures meet, and she can give educational instruction to visitors from her porch in full view of the wolves, if they choose to make themselves available.

"People come by appointment only — wolves are very sensitive, and I don't want people just showing up to gawk at them and disturb them," she says.

"When people come, they have to be educated about wolves and how to approach them. Then I show them a video, and after that we take a walk and they meet all the wolves. After that, they come back to the porch, and we have a question-and-answer session. Most people are usually here for 2½ to 3 hours."

When encountering a wolf, always approach with your body turned at an angle rather than straight on, and do not prolong eye contact, because that's a provocation, Tulleners says. Speak softly and calmly and avoid quick movements. Hold the back of your hand to the fence, and if the wolf wants contact, it will walk sideways along the fence to be scratched through the wire and perhaps stick its nose and tongue through for closer communication.

She never allows visitors to go into the wolf pens, although purebred wolves generally are not aggressive toward humans. Even so, "I have a few scars — the young ones play rough with each other, and when you're around them all the time and play with them, sometimes they forget you don't have fur," Tulleners says.

Adult Arctic wolves raised in captivity generally range in weight from 110 to 175 pounds. While life expectancy in the wild is about 8 years, wolves in sanctuaries easily can live 15 years.

Oregon's climate may not be ideal for the Arctic wolf, "but when it snows, they really love it," Tulleners says. "Most of the time they stay outside their shelters, but when the weather gets really rough, they go inside."

The sanctuary goes through tens of thousands of pounds of dry food and meat every year. Fortunately, Tulleners has special dispensation with the state Department of Transportation to pick up roadkill from area highways to augment the wolves' diets.

"This is a scary time for us because of the economy, just like everyone else," Tulleners says.

"There's a challenge every day. But it's not like these wolves have any choice — they weren't raised in the wild, so they don't have the experience of taking care of themselves. That's what I'm here for."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.