Bring Back the Wolf - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 117

lem. Suppressing the population to the extent recommended by the
Deer Commission is a labour-intensive and expensive business. People
pay to stalk and shoot the stags, but the profits tend to be offset by the
losses incurred in shooting the hinds (the females), with the result that
most estates either make a loss or just break even. The scientists who
have modelled the effects of reintroducing wolves find that it is likely
to make them more profitable. While wolves would reduce the num-
ber of stags, they would also avert the need for a hind cull. The result
would be that the estates would make a profit of £800 a year for every
ten square kilometres from deer keeping, rather than £550. 63 The
remaining stags are also likely to get bigger, as there will be more food
for each deer, which could mean that people would pay more to shoot
them. The wolves, the model suggests, are likely to reduce the deer in
the Highlands to around half their current number.
By killing and deterring deer, wolves allow woodland to regenerate.
A study published in the European Journal of Forest Research sug-
gests that hunting by humans is a less effective means of protecting
forestry than hunting by wild predators. 64 Wolves not only suppress
the population but radically alter the behaviour of the deer. They
might also reduce the number of cases of Lyme disease, a debilitating
and (in its advanced stages) sometimes incurable illness spread to
humans by deer ticks. 65 While we are well aware of the wolf's unhelp-
ful contribution to sheep farming, we are perhaps less aware that this
will be partly balanced by their killing of foxes, which often carry off
lambs. For the same reason, they are likely to be beneficial to grouse
moors and pheasant shoots. In North America, most of the compen-
sation paid to farmers for the damage done by wildlife takes the form
of payments for crops eaten by deer, not for livestock eaten by wolves
and coyotes. 66 It is possible, though I have not yet been able to find
comparative figures, that wolves there could in fact increase the over-
all production of food for humans.
Again, it would be deceptive to claim that I would like to see wolves
reintroduced because they kill foxes or reduce disease or assist the own-
ers of grouse moors and deer estates. I want to see wolves reintroduced
because wolves are fascinating, and because they help to reintroduce
the complexity and trophic diversity in which our ecosystems are lack-
ing. I want to see wolves reintroduced because they feel to me like