Killed Off?

http://mainewolfcoalition.org/wolves-in-the-northeast/november-1996-eastern-maine/

Most documented occurrences of wolves in Maine are of wolves that have already been killed. It is hard to understand the benefits to having wolves when whenever one is seen it is killed. This photo is from 1996. The man had been tracking and trying to trap the wolf for three years. He was not prosecuted. 

A young forest service employee named Aldo Leopold, charged with killing wolves in New Mexico in the early 1900's started to notice that as the wolves died off, the deer population boomed and ate all the plants to nothing. In his groundbreaking work, "Thinking Like a Mountain", Leopold put forth an idea 50 years ahead of his time: predators control ecosystems.