A cellist quit the Eureka, California, symphony orchestra rather than perform a work she says celebrates the demise of the wolf: Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf."

In a letter to Econews, an environmental magazine, Anne Conrad-Antoville said the 1936 tale "teaches children to hate and fear wolves and to applaud a hunter who kills a wolf." Wolves have survived despite "genocidal programs being waged against them and other predators," she wrote, calling on the public to boycott the symphony performance.

In "Peter and the Wolf," the wolf is captured, and Peter urges hunters to take the animal to a zoo rather than shoot it.

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