> why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed This path has been explored in Europe and is a mistake. 1) Killing a few wolves increases, not decre

> why we don't just pay the ranchers for livestock killed This path has been explored in Europe and is a mistake. 1) Killing a few wolves increases, not decreases damages (by altering the social structure of the pack). More paradoxical, killing all wolves in an area increases the attacks to small cattle in that area (even if there is not a single alive wolf anymore). Because wolf attacks are a very special case. There is not a single wolf in UK. Despite that, they still suffer 40.000 attacks to small cattle each year. By abandoned pet dogs, the same species as gray wolf. When government starts paying wolf attacks, suddenly, each stray dog attack (non paid) will be automatically assigned to wolves (paid) and will appear in the newspapers. This creates 'ghost wolves' and panic in the population, and increases the pressure against the environment (that is exactly the opposite that you are paying for). 2) Is an incentive for local corruption. People learn that if they cry wolf receive free money. They became insatiable and will try to game the system again and again. We had documented cases of the same cow "dying" two times, four times in four different places in Europe. By wolves that for some reason always start "eating the cattle tags". We had documented cases of cows dying by a natural accident and being blamed to scavenger wolves visiting the area four days later. 3) Is bad for the real farmers. Losing a cow is not a problem, destroying the cow market with a flood of easy money is. Meat prices are disbalanced by outsiders that release old or diseased cattle in a ranch to die at zero cost and then bill the state for wolf damages. At the end the real farmers figure out that letting the cows die is more efficient than producing meat. Or their activity is destroyed by the spread of new cattle diseases, and are replaced by fake farmers living in a big city. 4) It quickly turns into a sort of acquired right also. People gets upset if you try to stop it (and poison appears).