First, I have to say I generally understand people wanting to preserve a species and help an ecosystem. I really do. I have seen very little good science to back up the purported reasons for the reintroduction program though. Supposed benefits, ignoring the "tourist economy", such as elk and deer grazing habit changes for waterways, have not held up, and even if they did, were miniscule benefits that could be handled in other ways. (For example, instead of hoping wolves will hunt beaver which cause damage (but also help in ways), they could increase beaver tags. Right now the White Mountain Apache reservation is having a wild horse problem. The wolves aren't nearly numerous enough to even put a dent in it.
I have witnessed firsthand the kind of destruction that results in freshly minted PHD's showing up in a forest they've never been to and insisting they know better than the families that have lived on that land for 100+ years. The primary example of this for me was the large forest fires in the area. The old timer loggers were saying they should be allowed to thin the forests out, and that they should be allowing natural burns to go longer and be doing more control burns. The PHD's at the forest service insisted against this, and then the pine beetle infestation hit, and then a flame and poof... twice, more than 400k acres up in flames. This has created distrust in the locals.
I also question some of the shock value statistics being thrown around to villify or negate ranchers concerns. I've heard from people that they are increasingly restricting and disallowing public grazing... so how can decreases of livestock attacks really be trusted when there aren't nearly the same amount of livestock in the first place?
I haven't even mentioned how badly the actual reintroduction program was handled. They started by cage feeding pairs and releasing them as a pair. The wolves were way to reliant on being fed and way too unafraid of humans. Now they are trying to put cage born/fed pups into already wild packs...
My family jokes I'm half-Apache because I spent so much time in the forest when I was younger, but now we don't let friends or family go out to half our little secret spots without being armed. It's easy to say "wolves are more afraid of you" and spout all the things that PHD told you because he read them in a book, but when you are in the forest and hear a pack across the ridge at night... it has vastly changed the atmosphere of the mountains. Before the reintro program we really only had to worry about mountain lions and the occasional bear... both of which were much more scared of humans than any gray wolf is, especially in a pack. That being said though, I knew ranchers who have had more losses from the mountain lions than from the wolves, which is one of the reasons a mountain lion hunt is tradition in the area.
In the local population, this has created massive blowback, to the point that I openly hear people spreading the three S's when it comes to wolves. Shoot, shovel, and shhhhhhh. I never heard of anyone actually doing it, because the forest service put out a 50k reward for reporting such an action!
The bottom line is that at every turn I have seen phd environmentalists assume they know best and end up causing blowback that bites locals in the ass, while the forest service/blm will just move that person somewhere else and they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The locals are tired of this kind of federal over-reach.
New Mexico as I understand it currently has an injunction against the reintro program for just this reasons. I say good for them.
In all my years in the forest though, I only saw one up close and personal in the wild once. It was huge, beautiful, and majestic, and I'm glad I was in a vehicle. I simply don't see the real value of their reintroduction other than to make what my grandpa would call the "hippy tree huggers" feel good. In 20 years, they barely have the pop above 100.
edit: seeing lots of hate for ranchers. I honestly don't think people understand how important rachers are to the ecosystems, a thousand times more important than wolves. As for hunters, I generally have a lot of disdain for them. Locals bag one elk and share it. City-boy hunters who think they are country put on camo, sit in a stand all day and bag something mostly for the picture and the trophy, and that bothers me greatly. They also tend to have a lack of respect for the forest. Just saying, don't equate hunters or illegal hunters with the ranchers.