Bring Back the Wolf - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 116

The third and most important reason is that it keeps the wolves
afraid. As the review of wolf attacks suggests, the best means of pro-
tecting people from wolves is to ensure that wolves go nowhere near
them. Nothing is likely to do this more effectively than an occasional
shooting. The same tactic could be used to prevent wolves from
migrating into areas in which they are not welcome. At other times
people have hunted the wolf in order to eliminate it. Now we might
hunt the wolf in order to preserve it (but not within protected areas).
The last British wolf is widely believed to have been killed in the
Findhorn Valley, close to where Alan lives, in 1743, though the story
is treated as apocryphal by the great rural historian Oliver Rackham.
The last definite record of a wolf in Britain, he says, was the massive
bounty paid for an animal killed in Sutherland in 1621. 60 Wolves sur-
vived for longer in many parts of the Continent until they were
reduced, during the twentieth century, to remnant populations in
Spain, Italy, Scandinavia and eastern Europe. Their return to much of
Europe, which in many places has been greeted enthusiastically, is
perhaps the clearest sign of a radical change in attitudes to nature
over the past forty years or so, a change that has been taking place
more slowly in Britain but which, even so, is tangible.
Wolves range widely and can live almost anywhere: tundra, deserts,
forests, mountains, moorland, farmland, cities. When they are not
killed, they quickly re-establish themselves. There is one part of Brit-
ain which has all the characteristics required for their reintroduction:
the Scottish Highlands. There the population of red deer and roe deer
is not only high enough to support them but far too high. The human
population is far lower than in many parts of Europe (such as eastern
Germany and the Apennines) in which wolves live today. There are
few roads, which means that they are unlikely to be killed by cars. The
Highlands could probably support around 250 wolves, which should
be enough to keep the population viable. 61 England and Wales are less
suitable, as they have fewer deer; in Wales deer have been almost
obliterated.
While wolves and sheep may not be the perfect social mix, intro-
ducing wolves to Scotland's deer population could, one study suggests,
benefit even the big estate owners. 62 The overpopulation of deer, while
it pleases the stalkers, presents them with a major management prob-