Bobmn,
I think the whole transplanting episode was a CF from the beginning, for all sorts of reasons--some of which I've already pointed out, such as the fact that the American biologists (who apparently had little or no experience with wolves) were somehow convinced the Yellowstone transplants would concentrate on bison, and not elk.
They were similarly convinced that they'd have to keep planting wolves for years, to build up the population--a notion that soon ended when the wolf population started increasing quickly, due to all the fine nutrition from the elk they ate. This despite the Canadian biologists (who had plenty of experience with wolves) telling them wolves would quickly reproduce and spread.
The Canadians also advised the U.S. contingent NOT to transplant wolves, partly because of the consequent political headaches. This also proved to be true, partly because so-called agreement on how to manage the new wolves was constantly contested in the courts by pro-wolf organizations, some of which had agreed to the basic terms of the transplanting. Some of this no doubt occurred because the pro-wolf people bought the U.S. biologists belief that wolves would always be relatively rare.
But I also grow weary of wolves (or other predators) being blamed for every downturn in big game populations. As noted earlier, Lewis and Clark found the plains full of game--and wolves. The only place they encountered a relative lack of big game (and wolves) was around Fort Mandan, in what is now North Dakota, where they spent the winter on the trip up the Missouri. This because the local tribes were settled farmers, who did not follow the bison herds like horse-culture plains Indians. Instead they hunted around home, which almost cleared the surrounding country of big game--especially after L&C hunted with them early in the winter. As soon as the expedition left the next spring, they again encountered vast numbers of big game--and wolves.
Then there's the claim that the transplanted wolves were more aggressive killers. The moose in both Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks almost disappeared at about the same time, due to wolf predation. But there were no wolf transplants in Glacier, or anywhere close. Instead the Glacier wolves had naturally repopulated the Park by immigrating south from Canada. The results were pretty much identical to Yellowstone's, partly because neither park's moose had even seen a wolf before.
But in my hunting travels have seen plenty of examples of high big game populations where wolves were also abundant. Perhaps the most memorable example occurred in 2002 in northern British Columbia, where there were so many moose I killed a big bull just about a day after I started hunting--the 13th legal bull seen. This was because a forest fire had burned the area about a decade earlier, and the valleys had grown up in perfect moose browse. As a result there were plenty of wolves--and grizzlies. (There were also plenty of elk. I killed a 6x6, again only one of a number seen throughout the hunt.)
I also believe that instead of worrying so much about wolves, American hunters in the West should worry more about chronic wasting disease, which has a far greater potential for destroying our big game.
In one of the more interesting twists, some biologists believe wolves could be one of the reasons CWD is spreading, since they can eat infected animals and introduce the prions into the wild during their wanderings.
However, there are a couple of sidelights to this. First, CWD has also shown up where there aren't any wolves, and here in Montana, elk infected with CWD are rare compared to CWD-infected deer, even though elk hang out in larger herds, which should increase infection rates. But if wolves do prove to be a CWD vector, various agencies may get serious about reducing wolf numbers--and just as important, be able to actually do something about it, despite the pro-wolf faction.
