Opinion: I haven’t seen anyone make a good argument for why sports hunting is better than having professionals remove entire packs that have been deemed a bad problem (in addition to private citizens being able to kill some, as currently permitted). That’s the important question for me, and hopefully the NRC. There are many other hard to answer questions about what’s best for the land, and the average people (who don’t hunt wolves, or don’t hunt at all).

More trivially: I think wolf density will almost always be correlated to depredation. To restate by example: if there was just one wolf pack, I’ll bet almost all the wolf depredation would happen near it. Hi Ho.

Note: If helicopters are ever used, it will be by Wildlife Services (as in Washington last year). I am not opposed to that method (if you know you want those particular wolves killed). This might help clarify where that junk is coming from.