Arguing about what affect wolves have had vs if they hadn't been reintroduced is about like historians arguing how history would have been changed if Operation Valkarie had succeeded, or if Henry Tandey had killed Hitler in WWI.
It's all just a guess and both "sides" are cherry picking their "facts". There's so many other variables involved....fire regime, drought, increased hunter numbers, varying management objectives, invasive weeds, lowered bear and lion quotas...whatever else...not to mention the differences in how elk respond to predation in the various habitat types elk live in....which I suspect is one reason why the elk in the Selway have responded so differently to elk in the Wyoming Range.
I helped skin another one this evening...but I didn't shoot it.
