I have no idea as to what the safest number of wolves should be but I think that 1500 an excess of 250 over the "acceptable" upper limit is not indicative of any imposing danger. Opening the sleuths to hunters is not going to keep numbers to within a safe limit; one has only to do a little research on other species whose populations have been controlled that way.
Here are My Points Against Shooting Them Down
- If there is an increase in the number of wolves that is probably due to the fact that they have found naturally occurring prey and are not a current threat to farmers or civilians.
- A sudden invitation to hunters to go out and kill will reduce the population to a limit a lot lower than 900. Experience has instructed me that when hunters are given the go ahead they are not going to follow current stats on how many wolves they have to kill to reach that lower limit. Some if not many will just shrug off the limitations as an unnecessary tool in controlling the population even further.
- Recently reading Farley Mowat's classic "Never Cry Wolf" has informed me that the wolf is not as dangerous as it was once suspected to be and that wolves do not overkill their prey, as we would like to think. They select the weak and aged animals among caribou and other prey.
I can only recall a recent abominating poster of a wolf's head on a poster with a caption underneath likening the animal to a culprit when it is part of a useful food chain and should then be continually protected. It's greater number of a few hundred should not then be taken as an alarm
