I don't think the problem is the wolves themselves, they have been part of the ecosystem here for thousands of years before we came along. We used to have both timber wolves and red wolves here in the Southern Appalachians, and they didn't decimate the deer or elk or buffalo herds. The last documented timber wolf in the Southeast was killed here in my county only a few miles from where I live in(I believe) the late 1920's. The difference is that in the old days, there were millions of square miles of wild land and an almost unlimited population of game animals living in it. We started killing everything off and settling the land in the 1700's here, and by the early 1800's, our elk and buffalo were completely wiped out, and the deer not far from it. The big predators like wolves and panthers were mostly gone by then too-a few hung on here in the wildest parts of the Smokies until the early 1900's. (The last documented mountain lions in the region were killed here in my immediate area at around the same time that the last wolf died.) Top-end predators are very important in a balanced and healthy system, but nowadays, wild land is fragmented and scattered in small patches here and there and there are basically no healthy and balanced ecosystems left. There is no longer unlimited space or unlimited prey for wolves. The problem is us. Wolves are fascinating, beautiful creatures, the very epitome of wilderness. I think the world is a better place with wolves in it. But the sad truth is, there are few places left that will support them. I wish wolves could live here again, but it's unlikely. The government tried reintroducing red wolves here in the Smoky Mountains National Park a few years ago. It didn't work, because the wolves didn't know how to read the signs along the park boundaries. Even in the biggest chunk of existing wilderness in the Southeast, there wasn't enough room for them. They kept going outside the park and killing livestock, and roaming wherever they took a notion to, which is just how wolves roll. But the land base just isn't there like it used to be, and there were too many conflicts, so the government people (supposedly) rounded them all up and took them away. They reintroduced more at the other end of NC in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge, and so far, that seems to be working out, because there are a small amount of wolves in a large wild area with an overpopulated deer herd. At some point, the population of wolves will grow bigger than the area will support, and something will have to be done. I think wolves are a legitimate part of an ecosystem, but in today's conditions, any population of wolves would have to be managed to keep them from eating themselves out of a job-reintroducing wolves without keeping the population to the number that the area will support won't work. They are a vital part of the system, but so is everything else. Just like in Africa, protected elephant populations are limited to national parks surrrounded by human settlements, and they have nowhere else to go and soon overpopulate until they destroy the land to the point that nothing can live there unless they are culled back to a number that can live there without harming everything else. It's sad that we've gotten to that point, but it's just the way the world is-the only other solution is to reduce our numbers, but I don't see any politicians standing in line to suggest that. I would love to be able to hear a wild wolf howl here again, but I have also been in the situation of trying to raise livestock and keep them alive in an area full of coyotes and bears. I have seen what the coyotes (non-native to this area, but here in large numbers now, twice the size of western 'yotes, and hunt in large packs like wolves) have done to the deer herds here in the mountains. Nowadays, if you even see a deer in a season's hunting in this county, you've done well. I would agree with reintroducing predators that are native to an area, but I would also say that in a limited area with limited prey, the number of wolves would have to be kept extremely limited also for the whole thing to work.
