Here in Switzerland wolves are protected to some degree, but farmers and farmers unions are lobbying their way into the law to allow for easy hunting. Thing is, wolves were reintroduced clandestinely by some Italian animal right's association (can't remember which one) and of course they passed the border and installed in the Alps; it was not a public effort to reintroduce animal diversity or whatever, thus it was totally uncontrolled and led to many damages to livestock and rage. The other thing is that wolves and bears disappeared here because farmers hunted them to "extinction" back in the late 1800 early 1900. Why? Because people died. There are rocks on our mountains with hundred of tiny cross carved in them to remember those who died from bears/wolves attacks and pretty much every family has some horror story to tell (well, now less because the generation that lived during that time is almost all dead).