Jon points to the cover story for the new issue of Conservation In Practice, The Look of Success, which surveys the state of wolf reintroduction projects in the western US.

The American West is getting wild again. Half a century after the wolf was dynamited in its den, hunted, trapped, and poisoned out of the West, it has reclaimed the northern Rockies. This is one of the fastest recoveries of an endangered species on record, and few expected so many wolves would come back so quickly.

The return of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) has become one of the most controversial wildlife issues in the U.S. While people in Alaska and the northern Midwest have long lived with wolves, the wolves were gone for so long in the West that their return to daily life has been a shock. This is partly because wolves touch something very deep in the reservoir of human emotion—a depth to which few other animals come close—yet at opposite ends of the spectrum. Some respond to a wolf howl with shivers of delight, but for others that same ululating howl evokes chills of fear.

Fear is the sensible and proper emotional reaction, but respect and admiration are the proper intellectual reactions. See Ecology of Fear for other wolf insights that note the role of fear in functional ecologies. Fear isn't just a meaningless emotion or, as the article suggests, merely a symbol, the detritus of our more primitive past.

Canis lupus is arguably the most charismatic of what biologists refer to as “charismatic megafauna”—wildlife with sex appeal and the fierce public support that seldom materializes for the Wyoming toad or the short-nosed sucker fish. This is so, at least in part, because the wolf is a social animal that loves, mates, and rears its young much like humans do. On the other hand, there are deeply ingrained stories about the dark side of the big bad wolf.

“When people start talking about wolves,” says Bangs, who has spent the last 17 years meeting with people passionate one way or the other about these predators, “within seconds they are talking about something else—their children's heritage, the balance of nature, someone else telling you what to do. A lot of people get tears in their eyes and start sobbing. Managing the wolf is managing a symbol.”

Fear is an integral part of functional ecosystems. All species have fears and modify their behavior as a result. We don't often fully realize how much this determines outcomes by shaping interactions and movement since few species are so deeply feared by humans. Snakes and spiders may be the closest analogs but at some distance. Even big cats aren't so scary since they tend to be more solitary ambush hunters than agressive hunting packs. Wolves bring it to you.

So how is human behavior altered by the presence of wolves? What actions are taken in response to even the remote possibility that wolves will be an issue in some movement or other behavior? How can exploration of this relationship help us understand the fears of other species and how they shape behavior?

The article has some interesting discussion of wolf management issues given their unique behaviors.

. . . because no predator kills as often or with the same savagery as a pack of wolves, it has also meant a return to raw, frontier-style brutality in the Rocky Mountain West—not just by wolves but by the people charged with managing them. And because American culture idealizes wildlife, the killing—on both sides—has come as a shock.

The killing has been ratcheted up in recent years as the animal's numbers have grown. From a few dozen animals at reintroduction, there are now around 850. This increase has occurred much more rapidly than expected: biologists had predicted there would be around 500 at this point. Wolves kill often, for each wolf needs an average of 4 kg of meat daily. They also travel far and wide, and each pack has a home range of 650 to over 1,300 km 2 .

Because the West is growing ever more crowded and the habitat ever more fragmented, officials say there is no way to keep the wolves in the West without constantly monitoring, shooting, and trapping them. The current population of wolves is growing annually by 30 percent, which can take a toll on people's livelihoods. “The key to keeping the wolf around is human tolerance,” Bangs says. “The only reason wolves disappeared is because we killed them all. How do you kill the minimum you need to maintain human tolerance so we don't kill them all again? You kill problem wolves.”

There are some higher tech aspects to the management practices discussed in the article, and in future there will doubtless be more. We are coming to have not just a transparent society but also a transparent world where at the limit every living thing will be tracked and managed continuously. It may be useful to think about where this is all going. It's revealing that "the killing—on both sides—has come as a shock" since it is the single most obvious result one should have expected from wolf reintroduction, and that many predicted.

It indicates that there is very little thought being given to the dynamics of interventions, to "where this is all going" type of comprehension, and very little credence being given to local practitioners' judgements. Every grazier that I know that either had wolf experience or at least the wisdom gained from grandparents knew full well that killing is what wolves are about and that there is a certain kill-or-be-killed dynamic to cohabitation with them. Their concerns were that the reintroduction plans should include compensation for those affected and immunity from prosecution for self defense. They fear wolves but they can manage that fear and take care of themselves so long as the most dreaded predators - humans - don't make it impossible. A wolf is a deadly foe but no where near as vicious and threatening as an urban green bunny drunk on ideology.