CASPER, Wyo. (AP) -- The state has denied a Fremont County rancher's appeal contesting the amount he was compensated for cattle killed by grizzly bears.

Rudy Stanko contended he was owed more than the $3,741 the Wyoming Game and Fish Department recommended for his losses last year.

Stanko originally filed a claim for $180,800 in damages, saying grizzlies killed 198 of his cattle grazing in the Gros Ventre mountains in western Wyoming. He discovered the missing animals in December.

Game and Fish biologists, however, could only confirm that three cattle had been killed by grizzlies and recommended the $3,741 in damages.

At an appeal hearing last week, Game and Fish commissioners denied Stanko's claim but were sympathetic to his losses.

"Due to not really being able to confirm a whole lot but the number of cattle in and cattle out ... I don't know what else we can do but uphold the department's recommendation," commissioner Ron Lovercheck said. "I'm sorry this is as good as we can do ... but this is as good as we can do."

Stanko told commissioners the area has a "big grizzly problem" and that $3,741 did not justify his losses.

"We should have the right to protect our private property, but we can't because of the federales and so the burden is on the state to compensate us," he said. "Everybody knows these animals come out at night and drag them off."

Mark Bruscino, a conflict resolution specialist in the department's Trophy Game Division, said biologists could base their payment only on what they could confirm at the scene.

"If there were 194 dead animals up there ... we speculate there would have been a lot of carcasses lying around," he said.

AP-WS-05-02-04 1353EDT