Wolves are the fiercest animals in Europe – but nowdays there are very few wolves left in the wild. Wolves were hunted to extinction in England in the Middle Ages, and the last wolf in Scotland was probably killed about 250 years ago. You can still see wolves in zoos of course, and wolves live on as the villains in many popular children’s stories. But surely it is a good thing that there are no longer wolves living in the wild in this country?

　　Well, not everyone thinks so. If you go to the Highlands of Scotland today, you will see that the hills and mountains are almost completely treeless. It was not always like this. At one time, forests covered a large part of the Highlands. If the forest could re-establish naturally, it would provide a home for many types of plants and animals. The problem is that in many areas there are too many deer. In fact there may be as many as half a million deer in the Scottish Highlands. Wild deer are beautiful animals, but they can cause a lot of damage to plants and young trees. It is very difficult for young trees to survive where there are large numbers of deer.

　　Wealthy people pay a lot of money to go to Scotland to hunt deer. But they do not kill enough deer to reduce the population. In some areas, landowners cull the deer – that is, they shoot deer to try to reduce their numbers. But this is not always effective. The number of deer keeps on growing. The problem is that, apart from people, deer have no natural predators – that is, there are no other animals that hunt the deer for food. Once, wolves hunted deer in Scotland, but now of course there are no wolves.

　　A goup of ecologists has recently suggested that the answer is to re-introduce wolves to Scotland. They estimate that if this is done, the number of deer would fall to about a quarter of the present number in 50 or 60 years, and that this would enable the forest to recover and other plants and animals to find a home.

　　Some people welcome this idea. But many farmers and landowners do not. They fear that the wolves will attack farm animals, particularly sheep; or even that they would attack people. The subject is very controversial, and it is likely to be many years – if at all – before wolves again live in the wild in Britain. But the wolf is Northern Europe’s equivalent of lions in Africa or tigers in India. It is the biggest predator, at the top of the food chain. If we think it is important to protect lions and tigers in other countries, why not wolves in Britain as well?