Surely there are benefits to this. What are they? Could you provide a steel man of the opposition, please?

Population control, preventing overgrazing, stuff like that. However, the Netherlands (unlike most countries) is basically a big farm with practically no wild nature, so humans manage that stuff already. Maybe I'm exaggerating a tad, but I don't get what benefit wolves have in the Netherlands specifically.

	▲	hbogert an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The promise that the ecosystem would manage itself and wolves would just pick the least fit of the herd. It's shown they just like to kill for the thrill. There are cases of 30 sheeps per night in one site. 'Just Place fences' is a common heard thing, however wolves are smart and will just jump over or dig underneath. If you want to make a proper barrier with concrete is just practically unaffordable for the farmers.
	▲	tourmalinetaco an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		To the average Dutchy? Not much. To the average European? Also not much. Animal preservation is well and good and all but anything wolves can do for the deer population humans can do. Though Idk how it is in NL, but wild boars are nasty fuckers and we do good to keep them down, so there might be some benefit there, though not sure if damage by boars if offset by damage by wolves.

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KaiserPro an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Its larger animal control.

Wildboars can be quite destructive, as are deers. the wolve was the natural preditor of those animals so the only thing that kept them in check was either hunting, disease or food availability.

In the UK deer over population is a problem for forestry as they eat saplings. So we spend a lot of cash hunting them (good food source, but not widely distributed in shops) Wolves stop that.

For the netherlands sspecifically, where there are deer they eat the trees that provide bank stability (ie willows) Less of a problem now but they also eat the pioneer species that were used to build polders.

Deer carry disease for cattle and sheep as well. although cows in holland are fairly hemmed in, ticks and fleas are less so.