Washington can’t manage wolves For years humans punished wolves for existing and hunted them to the brink of extinction. Now it is the humans who may be punished because several advocacy groups are insisting that the Great Lakes states be forbidden from reducing their wolf populations. This is an unfortunate idea, and while one can understand the advocacy groups’ goal of making sure wolves have a chance to rebuild their numbers, their procedure is mistaken and will lead to more bitterness about and perhaps harm to the animals they seek to protect. These groups sued to stop a decision by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to remove about 4,000 gray wolves in western Great Lakes states from the federal Endangered Species List. The wolves have reached management goals, and states such as Wisconsin wanted tools to hold their populations in check. Tools means mainly hunting, of course. That’s the same management tool used to stop deer herds from becoming so large that they decimate forests and crops in their quest for food. While we wait for a legal ruling, Wisconsin residents bear the burden of larger wolf packs. Since 1990, 671 animals — cows, horses, dogs, and others — have been killed or injured by wolves in Wisconsin, and since 1985 the state has paid slightly less than half a million dollars in wolf damage claims.....