Another Book for the list

I am just about through reading Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong. This is a great book about grassland ecology and the role wolves should play in it, as well as the consequences of removing them. I think this is very important information in light of recent developments in Montana. Wyoming and Idaho concerning wolves. If the wolves are hunting and thinning the elk herds, doesn't that mean that the elk left will be better? Or are the elk hunters getting too lazy to really go after the animals? I was under the impression that hunting elk was sort of a right of passage. Not everyone I know that hunts goes elk hunting. I am too lazy to go hunting for elk. I don't want to get up at 3 in the morning and drive an hour and a half, and then walk for three miles to put an animal down in God knows what country, and then try and get all of the meat and animal back before it spoils, or have to fight off a grizzly bear, or twenty other things. I have been elk hunting, for sure, and seen elk. But not anywhere I would take one. I am all for healthy, strong animals. I am all for a healthy ecosystem here in the mountains. I am going to go out on a limb here. Sheep are like a fast food for wolves. Probably not the best diet. And to use an anthropomorphism: Just like us, an easy meal is too great an opportunity to pass up. After a few Big Macs (or lambs or calves) it is just too much work to go home and cook. Maybe there is something in that stuff that makes us complacent. I don't think wolves should eat domestic livestock. But I do think that they play a key role in the future of the forest and grasslands of Montana.