You know who to "thank" for "re-introducing" Gray Wolves to the western states, "caseless".... bruce babbitt and his boss billy klintune, husband of another candidate coming up.
Here, in MN, we've had Timber Wolves all along. It was just in the 70's when the feds decided they needed to force more of them upon the people of northern MN with listing them on the ES list.
Supposedly, they've now removed them from that list in our state after wolves have multipliedway past the "goal" of 1,251 to 1,400 wolvesby the eary 1980's.
Busy body greenies and well-meaning, but ignorant of the realities of wolves "do gooding" organizations and individuals have stopped with lawsuit after lawsuit in fed courts preventing US F&G and MN DNR from implementing transfer of control to manage the Timber Wolf pop. in our state all of these years.
Even though the Timber Wolf in MN was dropped from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1978, there has yet to be a single wolf legally hunted, aside from a very few each year that are literally caught in the act of killing livestock. And then only if there is still any money left in the under funded account for those overseeing the program to hire professional trappers or hunters to go in and take out a very few wolves in mostly NW MN. The rest of northern MN resident outside the cities are just stuck with the damage the over population does their animals and the big game.

That's why I'm very skeptical, whenever I hear someone claiming they're going to be one of the first to hunt a wolf legally in their state once they are back under state control. It's more likely it'll be their son who lives to see that day than them. I could be wrong and I hope that western states are able to get back control and have reasonable limits put on the numbers and can have state control. Just wouldn't get overly excited before or after it does happen.
Like it or not, now that Bruce Babbitt let the furry genie with big paws and big teeth out of the "bottle", you've got the Grey Wolf for good. Learn to find a ways to live within that reality.