Wolf v. man

Don't miss NPR's feature, Wolves at the Door:  Can Two Top Predators Co-Exist in the American West?  It raises plenty of legal issues.  Reporter Nathan Rott, who grew up in Montana, notes that wolf watching in Yellowstone National Park, which straddles Wyoming and Montana, "pumps about $35 million into the economies of communities around the park."  Yet 95% of gray wolves live outside the park.  In Montana, the gray wolf has already been removed from the endangered species list.  There, many support wolf hunting because wolves kill cattle, sheep and elk.  Rott reports:

To bring wolf numbers down, hunting quotas have been raised, and the cost of hunting licenses has dropped: Montana residents can kill up to five wolves every season, and the licenses are only $19 a piece. 

But there’s a reason it’s called hunting and not killing: Only about 1 percent of wolf hunters actually succeed.