He's not talking about lions and wolves around for the fun of it, like I have around my house in the UP of Michigan, but enough to control the deer populations by themselves, without hunting. Whether the author meant that or not, it is a common anti-hunting move to reconcile the problems of not allowing hunting. There are very few, if any, areas in the US that currently have the populations high enough to control games species by themselves-it would be a different world then.

I have wolves around my house, and when you can't even run your dogs-beagles, plots, walkers, or bird dogs, in areas because they are being killed by wolves, you might think of them as more than a novelty-it happens all the time. I have one friend who has lost 9 beagles, from 11 attacks, by coyotes. If only he had wolves around him too........?

Jeff...U.P. of Michigan