The first thing we want to do when we find a wild animal is in danger of extinction is to save it.

As soon as we do, we want to kill it.

Wolves are the latest example. Back in the 1950s, we feared wolf packs would kill too many deer, so we put a bounty on them: $20 for an adult wolf, $10 for a pup. Back in the 1950s, $20 would buy a tank of gasoline, or, maybe, two tanks. The bounty worked. The wolves almost disappeared. By 1980, there were only 15 to 30 wolves left in the state.

The deer were safe. The deer were so safe that they became as ubiquitous as raccoons. I 've seen as many as five in my back yard, cheerfully eating sunflower seed from my bird feeders.

So, that was something of a success story if you like deer and don 't like wolves. The problem is that many of us do like wolves, so the Department of Natural Resources labeled them an endangered species and did all in its power to save the remaining wolves.

That worked, too. Now, as many as 600 wolves are running around Northern Wisconsin, eating deer, yes, but, also, eating cows and pets. At least, that 's the claim by those who don 't want so many wolves.

Now the DNR is considering creating a wolf hunting season.

Mike Brust, Wausau, chairman of the Conservation Congress committee on wolves, thinks a hunting season is a good idea because it will confirm the wisdom of programs designed to save wolves from extinction.

"It 's a great success story, " Brust told my colleague, Ron Seely. But "if we allow them to spread to areas where they don 't belong, it could jeopardize the program. "

Actually, we 've seen this before. It wasn 't too long ago that Wisconsin initiated a program to reinstate the wild turkey population to the state. Many of us remember our first wild turkey sighting. It was a breath-taking sight.

Now turkeys are attacking postal workers in Madison.

It would be nice if wild animals remained in the wild.

But, they don 't. So the question we have to ask is just how much "wild " do we want to tolerate? Can we really divide Wisconsin into areas that are "wild " and those that are domesticated? If we actually could find a way to limit wild animals to "wild " areas, then haven 't we really just delegated them to a very large zoo? How can an animal be "wild " if it can live only where we tell it to live?

So far as I 'm concerned, a hunting season on wolves is just stupid. Why go to all the trouble of saving wolves from extinction only so we can send people with rifles out to kill them?

Contact Wineke at bwineke@madison.com or at 252-6146. Read Wineke 's blog at www.madison.com/wsj/blogs.