It seems strange to read this, sitting here in Western Canada, where the wolves never left.   I have heard Canadian ranchers complain, but never hunters (see below).   Wimps!

EXCERPTS FROM:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-787739,00.html

For a decade now, wolves have been quietly advancing through eastern Germany and may be making inroads across the entire country. But people still haven't learned to live with the predator. Some glorify the wolves, others demonize them and many are simply afraid.

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t's been 10 years since the first pair of wolves crossed the border from Poland and appeared in the sandy and isolated heath of the Oberlausitz military training area in the eastern state of Saxony, where they mated and raised their pups. Two females emerged from this family, which in turn found partners and, since then, have reliably produced new litters year after year.

The two females, which were captured, sedated, fitted with transmitter collars and released, were officially named FT3 and FT1. Scientists have given them more endearing names since then. One female, which has a slight limp and, on the blurred images taken by camera traps, has a dark spot where an eye used to be, was named One-Eye. Today One-Eye sports the belly of an older female between her thin legs. Wolves living in the wild rarely live much longer than One-Eye's 10 or 11 years.

The other female, One-Eye's sister Sunny, has been equally productive. Sunny and One-Eye will likely go down in history as the primordial mothers of Germany's new wolf population. Their clan has been largely responsible for a bounty of some 158 pups. Many of them have died, while others have migrated into the wilds of Eastern Europe. Alan, a son of One-Eye, made it as far as Belarus. Nevertheless, some wolves have remained in Germany and established new families.

Today, close to 90 specimens of Canis lupus are roaming through the eastern German states of Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. One female, Zora, made it almost as far as Hamburg, where her trail disappeared.

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Hunters, for their part, accuse the so-called "wolf protectors" of idealizing the predator. And why should conservationists be so upset in the first place, hunters ask? After all, they argue, the new hunting laws still don't permit hunters to shoot wolves, so their protected status would remain unchanged.

The real question revolves around who ultimately determines how many wild animals human beings will tolerate in an environment they have largely cultivated and developed.

Conservationists and wildlife biologists have long felt relatively strong, after having won numerous battles. The wolf is strictly protected, and Saxony has a wolf management plan based on European Union guidelines that is so exemplary that Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and, to some extent, Bavaria have already copied it. The government has come to terms with sheep farmers, who are compensated for dead sheep and receive subsidies to install fences and assistance in acquiring special dogs to protect their herds.

Hunters, on the other hand, feel short-changed and are unwilling to cede control over their forests to wolves or conservationists. For this reason, the hunting lobby has convinced Kupfer to place the wolf "under the protection of game laws," as it is phrased. When asked to expound on the issue, Kupfer tends to stress the word "protection."