Dirt regarding your post #1, For one thing I live in area 100 in the Kootenai National Forest and I am well aware of the problems the wolves have caused in this area and our biologist will not admit that there is a problem. They do kill for the thrill to kill, a friend of mine lost one of his cat dogs to a wolve and just left it lay and made headlines news here and they said it was just an isolated case and such issues as this is how they just bury there head in the sand and hope that the problem goes away. Dirt the winter your talking about that was so severe that it killed off a lot of wildlife was back in 96-97 I believe and yes it was a servere winter. I live here along the Canadain border and on one side of the border its illegal to shoot a wolf but on the other side of the fence its legal. I do not believe in a full down right massacre of the specie but they do need to be kept in cheque, if you think there is a shortage of wolves around here then come out here, you'll hear them all night long and find lots and lots of animal parts in the vacinity. Once every couple weeks I go down to Kalispell to pick up supplies and at times I can see a wolf off in the distance feeding on a road kill and as we approach closer it goes back into the bush and as you pass and look back you can see that wolf come back to that carcass.
The wolves effect the areas that I hunt and some areas I just won't even venture into if I know that the wolves have been hunting prior to myself. I think they need to have a limited hunt such as they do with cougar hunting here and when they reach a certain quota, cut it off. Just my .05 cents worth. Bobby