A lot of people talk about the important role federal and state lands play in protecting wolves. But Diane Boyd, a wolf and carnivore specialist, said those public landscapes often are at high elevation and don’t harbor wintering populations of deer and elk. …that wolves need both private and public lands protected, and the private swaths are critically important. …Since 2011, though, wolves have been hunted in Idaho and Montana, and Boyd said she believes it’s having an impact. She said an estimated 80 percent to 85 percent of wolf mortality is human-caused, some legally. “I believe that the human harvest is significant enough it’s causing a slow and steady decline,” she said.