We know exacltly what it takes to control a wolf population, we have a historic pattern to look at. Right now around here they are gunned from an airplane at the drop of a hat, our gov trapper is one it, but wolves just like coyotes just need flown once and they will get in cover and hold tight. He only guns our county and there are very, very few guys and fewer pilots willing and able to gun from an airplane which is the most cost effective way vs a helicopter.
It took a LOT of poison and long line wolf trappers making bounty and it still took a lot of work, with the current trapping laws it's tough but I know guys tagging a few, being able to snare would really help especially in the more timbered areas.
Poisons are straight out, only a gov trapper can use getters and in today's environment they'd only be used in the back country.
One of the best ways to motivate more guys to hunt wolves is a fur market or some kind of bounty, really if there was a stong market for our fur that would add up more pelts.
The numbers we are killing now is only make the wolves strong, if you look at coyotes, if you go into an area trapping that hasn't had a trapper there for years you'll catch a couple pups a pack and hopefully a couple older dogs, after a couple.years hitting an area hard you'll see 6+ pups per pack and your average age drops and the health increases so right now we really would need to be killing an unreal amount to actually knock them down a little which I don't see possible.