Hiawatha, to answer your question, I would have to say that they are lying or shall I say "Keeping the facts hidden" in a politically correct manner!! In Minnesota, my brother has heard time and again up north that there are only about 2500 wolves in MN but from what I hear that number appears to be much larger. Remember, these are biologists that are part of the re-introduction and want it to succeed. If they start saying that there are too many wolves it could possibly affect their efforts or possibly change their funding, e.i. paycheck. You can bet that the animal rights folk are lining up behind them ready to do battle when the time comes to delist them so that they can be controlled via hunts or by whatever means. They've been talking about delisting wolves in MN for awhile now and nothing ever seems to get done. Or at least I've not witnessed any progress. When I first heard years back that they were introducing wolves into the western states I figured I better start hunting there while there are opportunities. As long as there is game the wolves will multiple until the food source starts to drop and then they will level off. The problem is that what will be that leveling off in terms of numbers of elk/deer left?? I remember back in the 1960's in northern MN when the wolves weren't protected and there were deer all over the place. Things changed once they became protected and started to multiple. Then the deer dropped over the years. That's not to say that there isn't any decent hunting up there but it will never be like it was in the past as the wolves see to that.