Our attitudes toward wolves and our treatment of them cut to the very marrow of how we view our relationship to the natural world. If the driving motivation for the reintroduction of wolves into Idaho and Yellowstone is the symbolic act of restoring a relationship of respect and cooperation with nature, the actions of capture and relocation do not fit the symbol. Capture shows no respect for the highly developed social structure of the pack. Relocation denies the wolf's natural tendency to seek new territory when its own territory is overpopulated. With the best of intentions, it is all too easy for human beings to cross the line between necessary concern and unnecessary control.
Humans are superior to nature.
If we no longer try to conquer or eliminate wolves, we at least try to control them. Fear, hatred and the need to control the wolf's untamable wildness created an environment in which slaughter was not only acceptable, but advocated. There is no doubt that human beings bear responsibility for the protection of these magnificent creatures. However, the awe and admiration which have replaced the fear and hatred have not removed the human need to control. When this need to control results in tactics which are invasive and which disregard the very nature of the wolf itself, the danger is that human interference will unintentionally diminish the very wildness environmentalists seek to preserve.