In an effort to boost dwindling interest in wildlife among kids, the Minnesota Zoo has launched a downloadable video game that invites gamers to play as a wolf in Yellowstone National Park.

The object of WolfQuest is to scour plains and forests in search of prey while defending one's own territory. The ultimate goal is to find a mate, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Downloaded 13,500 times as of last Wednesday, the game is aimed at kids aged 10 to 15, "because kids have largely stopped going to zoos and are more interested in things like video games," the game's project director, Grant Spickelmeir, told AP.

In particular, multiplayer games like World of Warcraft enjoyed a good reception in 2007.

WolfQuest was made possible through a $508,253 grant from the National Science Foundation and was developed by EduWeb, a St. Paul-based educational software developer.