[oldE]

Charles does make a couple of valid points.

Every deer (or other large species) taken by hunters (or predators), means one less to jump out in front of my car.

When most folks talk about a 'disaster' in the deer or elk population, they really mean "not enough for me to hunt with a reasonable chance to get mine".

The fact of the matter is, however, if it were possible to let the wolves/coyotes/etc. do their thing, they would indeed manage the prey species, but most would have their knickers in a knot because the swings in population as the component species went through their 'boom' and 'bust' cycles.
ie: The deer are starving! We must do something!
to: The wolves are eradicating the deer population! We must do something!
and: There are no deer or large predators in our woods! We must do something!

When you get right down to it, we want many things and what we want sometimes is so fuched up in the eyes of old Mother Nature she must be just waiting for us reach the end of our time.

Having said that, I have made it known to the local coyote population (the 70 lb Eastern wolf cross we now have here) that they are not particularly welcome here. I am under no illusions they have gone. They just don't let me see them. They don't take calves, as the herds protect them and most sheep farmers keep donkeys for the same reason. At the same time, the Province of Nova Scotia has (probably due to a fatal coyote attack on a human and a couple of other incidents) instated a bounty on the animals. Just a sorry waste of time.

One thing you can be sure of: if there seems to be a simple solution, you're probably wrong.

Be well
Les